Labor Day Share - Gathering of the Two-Six, Anzushiro

Hello and happy Labor Day to everyone in the States. Got a new picture to share today...

It took me a little longer to roll this one out, predominantly because I spent less time working on it than I expected. Much of that is because of working on the Athena picture, which is the most complete of the pair. But it’s been a couple months since I released the colorless versions, and for now I’m done with this one until I get the other parts of the “Gathering of the Two-Six” portrait done.

First off I have reaffirmed my amazement and appreciation of the skills of those who do this professionally. Their talents are very hard-earned. Quite obviously I don’t measure up, but I hope you won’t hold that against me too much (lol).

As I explained with the original version, the real-world functionality of the image is a mash-up between Dark Magician Girl in form and Marianne vi Britannia in wardrobe, with a few modified elements. Nevertheless, this is not meant to “be” Dark Magician Girl/Mana, but a semi-original character named Anzushiro, from my fan-fiction, Book of the Shadows.

The color scheme here is more or less based around Dark Magician Girl. The blue of the dress and the pink of the trim on the dress are the blue and pink from DMG’s clothes. The big note is clearly the hair. Anzushiro, as her name suggests, is supposed to have white hair. Obviously DMG nor Marianne has white hair, so I didn’t have them to rely on as a guide. Obviously, however, white is white. That being said there’s a number of ways I could have gone with making her hair white. Often hair gets tinted another color to emphasize the lines and boundaries in hair. I considered doing that to a more significant degree; tinting it a very light pink or very light blue. I decided I wanted to maintain a more “pure” white. That being said her hair isn’t actually “white” but a very light grey. I could do this predominantly because I took to the time to do color matching of the outlines for Anzushiro as opposed to just black. So her hair is light, light grey with a “regular” grey for the outline of her hair, the same way the blue parts of her dress are outlined in a darker blue, so on for the pink.

The design on the dress was more or less a last minute addition. I hadn’t really planned on it initially but wanted to give it a try. It is a sort of stardust pattern I made using about three or four different brush tips and sizes, and a couple of layers for the glow effect. I had to play around with it a little to make it look as well as it does, and even so I still feel it doesn’t quite look right, so I’ll be trying to figure out exactly what I need to do to make it look a little better.

I am also not completely satisfied with her eyes. I’d like to do something to add a little more life to them, so that will be my focus there. As they are now they seem very flat.

I added something of a background, nothing too special. I am working on a real, proper background for the final “Gathering of the Two-Six” scene, but that’s far from ready. So here we have a simple bench with a wood texture to it floating against a light brown wall. Finally, I added a drop shadow of Anzushiro. That too doesn’t fit entirely well. I probably should just leave that out until I get a proper shading job done.

My biggest pet peeve with this image is the fact that I think I went too big on the outline. I would probably use a thinner line if I were to do this one again and will be keeping that in mind with my future pieces. There is a little bit about this one that doesn't look entirely right without the proper shading and highlights, such as her necklace, but I expected as much.

I had started on Athena's image before moving over to Anuzshiro's. As I will detail once posting Athena's portrait, the biggest pain there was dealing with getting her hair right. I had an unexpectedly difficult time dealing with black hair. Moving over to Anzushiro I had slight worry that I would find myself facing the same issue with her white hair, but I didn't. I should have known just based on thinking it through a little beforehand, but that's the point of practice I suppose. 

I will be putting a few finishing touches on Athena’s picture soon so I can upload it. It is slightly more complete in terms of shading, so I’d like to hold it up as an example of where I will be looking to go with the rest of the eventual portrait. I will choose not to add that shading to the rest of them, including this one of Anzushiro, until I do finish the others and I have a better idea of where the light sources will be.

Well, that’s the story here. Please feel free to comment, make recommendations, etc. You can also view it here and here. It's bigger in the second than the first. Please let me know if either link isn't working. I’m fine with anyone looking or downloading this image, but please, please, please, let me know if you are going to post this piece anywhere or see it posted anywhere other than Minitokyo, DeviantArt, or my blog.

And, my music share for today is this, since it's Labor Day and everything.