[Ibuki Cosplay] Azur Lane's New Wine in an Old Bottle: Red Curtains and a Golden Ingot Reflecting in Red Eyes

Sorting through this set of photos for Ibuki from Azur Lane, seeing the lines written in the post like "falling in love with unpopular characters is my destiny" and "just rehashing old content" indeed matches my current mood very well.

The focus of this set of photos lies in the creation of a retro atmosphere. The character's styling features are long blue hair paired with two ring-shaped buns on top and that pair of black curved double horns, which, combined with the red pupils, gives a very strong color of Eastern mythological stories visually. This beautifully highlights the look of blue hair with two horns.

Regarding the costume, I coordinated it with white-and-blue garments and added large areas of light purple translucent mesh sleeve covers; this multi-layered wear makes the torso section appear much lighter. The golden piping at the neckline and cuffs, along with the red rope knots and straps, serve to brighten the overall visual amidst the low-profile color palette to avoid looking stiff.

This solid golden ingot item held in hand has an excellent texture, and under the photographer's warm yellow light source, the resulting metallic reflection is quite ideal. During the shoot, the light source was intentionally biased to the right side, letting the light form dazzling highlights on the surface of the ingot, while bringing out the silhouette of the lower body and the light-transmitting feel of the tulle, giving the legs a great light-and-shadow extension.

The scene layout referenced a traditional Chinese tearoom or festive interior setup. Behind me is a screen painted with ancient life scrolls, in front are blooming red and white flower bouquets, and the right side is paired with a very heavy red gauze as a foreground, which can both block excess clutter and provide a large area of red warm color tone for the frame through light transmission. The foreground is also scattered with red fruits and handcrafted small items, increasing the richness of detail in the frame.

Regarding the "unpopular character" mentioned in the post, in fact, in this kind of fantasy style, red-and-blue color schemes are not rare, but those who truly dig deep into character features and achieve great photo output results are indeed not many. The phrase "rehashing old content" is also very interesting; to me, shooting the same character at different periods actually yields different understandings and pursuits regarding makeup, lighting control, and expression management.

This time during post-processing, special care was taken to preserve the natural color of the ambient light without doing excessive preset filter treatments, focusing more on adjusting the softness of the highlight edges. This ensures that the blue hair strands can still have their texture clearly seen under strong light instead of blurring into a clump. The concentration of blush and eyeshadow was also controlled quite restrictively to avoid that sense of a post-processed mask.

Fellow fans who are touched by these elements of warm light, the golden ingot item, and the Chinese screen are welcome to exchange thoughts on this approach to lighting and prop arrangement. This shoot can also be counted as a small validation of my own aesthetics.