May 3, Sigrun from Sigrun from ”Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn/Radiant Dawn”<Tumblr|Pixiv|Twitter.com|Skeb.jp>
I have never illustrated a person with such a mature face before. I did a few croquis and sketches and warmed up enough for this illustration to be a challenge. But this was difficult.
I painted a fan art with the usual feel. This is a refreshing finish. I used less paint for the shading to shorten the time required for finishing. However, the line drawing was done well, and the shapes were clearly defined by color separation.
Looking Back
I look back at the review notes I keep for each illustration I do. This note is about the composition of an illustration as seen through a wide-angle lens.
Creating this illustration was my challenge. It has a complex layout and costumes. The layout is especially challenging. The view through the wide angle lens in this illustration is difficult to draw without clues. So I used a poser.
I used a poser so the composition would be correct. But somehow, when I look at the feet of this illustration, I feel unnatural. Is the focal length too short? I noticed the discomfort. To make matters worse, it was when I was about to start the clean-up of this illustration. I don't want to start from the beginning again. I had to finish the illustration with a feeling of discomfort.
If I ever have the opportunity to do this kind of illustration again, I should probably increase the focal length then. It is said that drawing with a telephoto lens is an ironclad rule of illustration. I like the bust-up view through the wide-angle lens in this illustration. It looks down at the breasts while looking up at the face. But this view could have been drawn almost identically through a telephoto lens.
Using a wide-angle lens creates unnatural distortions at the edges of the screen that are unwelcome in illustrations.
If I really want my illustrations to look like they were seen through a wide-angle lens, I should make sure that the viewer cannot see the shrunken areas. In this illustration of mine, it is to crop at the upper knee.
And I discovered. There are other ways to crop. You can place other objects where the crop should be and break the line of sight once. If I were to modify this illustration, I would draw a table top around the knees of the person. That way, the unnatural shrinkage would be removed from the focus of the illustration. The weight of interest in the unnatural part would be reduced. After this picture, I started to pay attention to wide-angle illustrations, and I noticed that in many of the ones I liked, the flow was cut off in this way.
I tried to add strength to the line drawing. It's called line weighting. Usually I don't go this far, I just use a pen of a certain thickness to separate the parts and that's it.
Enlarged line drawings, ribbon front and back, etc. are clearly visible.
I think I finally understand and see the peculiarities of my drawing. I mean, the proportions of life size and face are becoming more solid. In my illustrations, the eyes are too big, even when I draw someone who looks mature. I should be able to draw different facial proportions for different types of people, because they look childish no matter what I draw.
It was a tough illustration. There was much to learn from this. This wide angle and telephoto story will be useful in the future.
At the end of this note, I mentioned that I couldn't draw the faces of adults. I faced that problem exactly in this week's new illustration. I hope to try again soon.
