A little on the preliminaries before I get into the picture proper. A lot of us may be wondering (including myself) why am I drawing the same characters over and over again, especially when they were supposed to be manga/anime characters of the series K-ON! where the moe factor is supposedly at extreme levels brinking intolerance. The reason- I do not follow a hell lot of series (in one shot) unlike my true blue otaku counterparts do, so K-ON! is technically the only thing I am in touch with the Japanese world of manga- animation, apart from the other much more deeper Ghost in the Shell series (which isn't really much to talk about cuz it'll probably turn off half the world if I ever started talking). Well, as for why K-ON characters? I guess there is no need to convert up GiTS characters, them being already quite realistically depicted.
There is also this pertaining question that is getting more and more evident- why do I not do pencil portraits? Well, I don't like to convert natural things down to a style that I have yet to master. For now I am probably crunching away at T1.7 pictures, with a realism factor of 70%. Till the time I may replicate images at 90%-100% integrity would I then consider pencil portraits. For now it would be learning the ropes of basic postures, tonality, and detailling. Moreover, it'll always be greater fun if I could churn out realistic pictures with an idealism factor of 75%- 100% (i.e. just remember the face and general posture, and then detail in everything else from imagination) instead of chasing after every contour from a set picture. I'll eventually get there I guess, but I'll definitely need lots of practice, and of course guidance, in the meantime.
Well then, back to our picture of the week.
Our first depiction of Mio came in form of bust portrait. It was really the first prototype of T1.7 pictures, and naturally it was quite an unstable image of its own. The eyes were a tad too big, making her look a little too slutty-dolly. The nose was of the best of my ability then, and the mouth was off its mathematically calculated position. There was a lot of mathematics involved, and every line was very technical in nature. Still it was acceptable for a static pose- after all, everybody looks a tad off when they take passport photos.
In the last picture project we focused greatly on drawing other aspects other than the head, hair and shoulders. For our Hirasawa Genius we complimented her with a half-body shot (in school uniform) and a full depiction of Gita. Tonality wise we focused greatly on depicting details and material shine. However, there were still a lot of references to reference-pictures, bringing the idealism factor to 50% Moreover, it was the first attempt at managing pose, so the source picture was essentially quite straightforward. "Stand straight there, genius, -30% perspective, assume a guitar holding position, good- now say cheese". Not that it was terrible, but it was still quite static in nature. Well, its actually good that we started on posing from such a strong picture, now its time we truly break away from camera posing, and reference pictures, and progress to natural shots.
Naturally, Mio is now up for the challenge.
This time the source material was a little more fun. While the depiction of her clothes and hair is similar to our first picture (K-ON!! ED: Listen!!), this time she's at +60 degrees off center, head slightly turned to +45 degrees, holding a microphone with her left hand (the hand closer to the observer), singing (how to draw open mouths quite wide open?), and supporting her bass guitar (nicknamed Elizabeth by Yui) with her right. Elizabeth is at +60 degrees perspective, left-handed (invert Gita's configuations), and bottom facing viewer (the top is at the far end). Most importantly, Mio herself is not looking at the audience, or close to the audience, in actual fact, she appears to be looking straight on, but given her shy deposition, they are not focused on anything in particular.
Mathematics was quite out of question by now. Since most of her body is not in a constant plane with the paper, it was impossible to scale down dimensions from measurments and proportions. With the recurring issue of depth perception problems, there was only one option left. Heck the reference materials, and do it straight from intuition via trial and error (the Kimmie picture). A lot of self control was excercised to prevent the pencil from excessive ecentuation or neglectance, and the left hand was redrawn 6 times.
In the end it somehow came out. I don't know if its objectively correct (3D trigo would be needed to justify), but more or less, it looked asthetically pleasing. In actual fact, it's quite convincing as a natural pose. The fluidity of her fingers on the mic, and how she bends slightly forward to sing looks slightly convinving that this picture is taken while she is singing, rather than a picture taken of her going to sing. As for other minute details, I guess the only way to verify them is by subsequent experience.
I'll try to shade this in a twink- Hopefully the tonality matches with the basic posture. If so, then hooray guys, we have our first natural pose in T1.7 =D
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