Izanami - Night of the Full Moon by waytooemily
Mobage-esque illustration of an original character: Izanami, Goddess of Yomi. My graduation project for the Advanced Commercial Illustration course at Kadokawa International Edutainment. Here's a little insight on my progress, things I would do differently, and more!
Color Sketch
Hey! It's been forever since I last came here. I've really missed the positive vibe here, though, so I want to be start posting here again! Here's to hoping I don't fall off the face of the earth again ahaha. I actually started by drawing myself a reference sheet of the Izanami and making some thumbnails (those are on my old PC, though; will add those here later!). Here, I plan out colors, lighting and whatnot.
Refined Sketch
Well, "refined"; it's still super messy! Here, I'm trying to finalize the positioning of everything, especially the spirit energy swirling in the foreground.
Clean Sketch
Looking back, I laid down the values a bit incorrectly; the sky should probably be lighter than Izanami since it's closer to the main light source, making for a stronger composition value-wise. My initial consideration was that I didn't want Izanami to be too dark since she's the focus of the image, but night sky does not automatically equal pitch black. Whoops!
Grayscale Painting
I wanted to try doing grayscale to color. Even in realism, you do not want to cram in ever single plane shift and shadow: our jobs as artists are to observe, understand, simplify, and rearrange elements to make them look even better than reality! Anyways, the point is that I limit myself to using five values to render her form. On retrospect, I would've considered the colors of her kimono and darkened/lightened parts accordingly (ex: the purples a darker grey) to make things easier for me when I'm adding color x'D
Final 2
As you might be able to tell, I adjusted Izanami's size and tilted her head more up because her posture was looking a bit stiff to me. This is "Final 2" because this wasn't the first version I sent to my mentor. I'll be uploading that one later since it's also on my other PC. There is also a Final 3 in which I make final FINAL adjustments as per my mentor's suggestions, so please look forward to it! ^o^
This looks so awesome!! I can't wait to see the final version. I find it interesting that with the final tweaks of her posture, she looks similar to the original posture you sketched out in the first step!
I really like your tips on limiting yourself to just using five values to help make sure you keep things simplified.
@jojostory Thanks a bunch! I lost a lot of the initial dynamism of my sketch as I tightened things up to be more anatomically correct. Luckily, I noticed before it was too late and was able to change the position of her head x'D
It's really easy to cram in too many details when painting, which doesn't always look good! I've had to work in anime/mobage styles for this course, which requires me to render things in a more simplified way. I think working this way has really helped me in making my own stuff look more appealing, haha :'D
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