Xingchen

Stardust, also known in Chinese as Xingchen (星尘), is a Chinese VOCALOID to be developed and distributed by Shanghai HENIAN Information Technology Co. Ltd., in collaboration with the Quadimension group and will be released for the VOCALOID4 engine. She will be part of the Voicebank Customize Project.

History
Stardust was originally conceptualized as "Quadimensionko", a mascot for the Quadimension album series and group.

On May 28th, 2015, Shanghai HENIAN announced that they had taken up Quadimension's commission to develop a VOCALOID4 voicebank for her. Her recordings would take place in June and it was confirmed that she would not be a part of Vsinger, the main project Shanghai HENIAN handles featuring a group of characters who were considered to be their main VOCALOIDs and top priority. She would be the first VOCALOID for the Voice Customize Project instead. A newly refined version of her design was also showcased.

On May 29th, after receiving worried feedback about her design from the Chinese VOCALOID community, Stardust would be receiving new clothes, but her hairstyle would not be changed. On the same day, Shanghai HENIAN posted a thread concerning the many questions Chinese fans asked. The Voicebank Customize Project was described to be a series of characters that were conceptualized or pitched by outside groups and companies. These groups approach Shanghai HENIAN to try to convince them to make a voicebank for their conceptualized character and provide the funding. With this in mind, this character would not be part of the Vsinger group.

It was also explained why Yuezheng Ling was a VOCALOID3 vocal and why Stardust was a VOCALOID4. By the time Stardust was conceptualized, the VOCALOID4 engine was in a more stable position and was ready for Chinese VOCALOIDs to be produced.

On July 6th, a livestream on bilibili was held by ideolo, the artist of Vsinger's original cast members. A new design concept for Stardust was revealed and her concept was originally redesigned by November. November passed the design onto ideolo, who would become the artist for her final boxart. It was noted that November had a difficult time trying to redesign her and this was the end result. Her final design was revealed on July 17th at Firefly Con. On July 29th, November's redesign concept was revealed to the public.

On August 2nd, it was revealed that Stardust was in the tuning process.

Concept
Stardust was originally a mascot for a group of producers and album series, Quadimension.

According to the Quadimension 3 album artbook and November's design concepts, Stardust is capable of flying to Earth by using her hair. However, it was noted that she does not necessarily need to flap her hair while flying in space.

Etymology
Her name, Xingchen (星尘; Xīngchén), means "Stardust" in Chinese. "Stardust" is her official English name as it was shown in the first image showcasing her.

She was originally known as "Quadimensionko".

Appearance
Stardust's design was based on her original Quadimensionko concept. There has been notable minor changes as she was given a skirt, has shorter pigtails on the lower side of her head, and has a different top in the newly revealed design.

However, due to the Chinese fans worrying about her appearance looking similar to Hatsune Miku, Stardust was announced to have her clothing changed, but her hairstyle kept the same.

Stardust has a quad tail hairstyle that was created to represent "Quadimension".

Her final design was drawn by illustrator, ideolo, but was designed by November. Her quad tail hairstyle was still kept, but worn in a different way. She also sports a new one-piece dress. She lost the arm warmers and these were replaced with long gloves.

Trivia

 * While she is the first Shanghai HENIAN VOCALOID to not be part of the Vsinger project, Xin Hua was the first Chinese VOCALOID to not be part of it overall.

Notable for...

 * First Chinese VOCALOID4
 * First Quadimension VOCALOID