"Calm Skies" - Some Reflections

A section of the artwork -- links to full version at the end of the post

Simply put, my original plans for this artwork was quite different. With Death's Candles out of the way, I was free to do a new piece. It was very easy to return to my often-used female model (my "Kiya"), but I realized that Kouseikei, the current male lead in my artistic universe, had yet to be given a solo artwork of his own. All my other artworks that feature him are either group pieces, or otherwise show him with Kiya. Now was the time to remedy that situation, I thought.

Meh, I still suck at human anatomies :(

Horrible preliminary sketching/planning aside, the process of its finishing was interesting, to say the least. The time period of its making coincided with some drastic events in my life. For one, the Philippines was being buffeted by the typhoons Saola and Haikui just as I was painting the background of the image.

At that moment, you can say that the artwork was in itself a prayer for calm skies again.

I owe Google images and Wikipedia a lot for jump-starting my muse and finding references, definitely. However, the weather wasn't the only significant influence in the artwork. I won't say it in many words, but as I was fleshing out Kouseikei, I made a decision that significantly altered my day-to-day living.

And made me notice some things I have never seen about him before, with regards to his character.

Admittedly, I am not too fond of using persons I know of as bases for my characters. I am not saying that my real-life interactions have no influence in how I design or conceptualize my characters (quite the opposite). I just don't like my characters ending up as simply being Ms. or Mr. So-and-so in a different name and look in my artistic universe. (Think of how awkward it could get.) Likewise, Kouseikei was "born"  more as a plot necessity and not as a virtual model of a real-life person.

At least, consciously. Because, if some people who know me by my real name also read about Kouseikei's story, they might find some glaring similarities with his personality and that of someone I know of. Don't worry, "he" has no wings, and neither was he scarred on the cheek and back by his cousin. :)

View the full artwork here or here.

Bringing OCs to Life

It's finally 2012. I just pray this year will be a better one than the last, in which I was plagued here and there by spells of hopelessness (a bit of which carried over to the new year, I'll admit). But enough of that. Before I return to college a few days from now, I decided to try bringing my OCs to life. Originally, I intended to include every major OC from Starmaiden, but I just realized I hadn't really paid attention to my characters' physical descriptions (excluding the main protagonist). It was like starting from scratch, so I ended up with just Kouseikei and Ashikase instead.

Well, it's no wonder Kiya and <name withheld to prevent spoilers> fell for you, m'dear

Kouseikei is a favorite of my drawing muse, second only to my gijinka Palkia, who's his eventual mate in my story universe. I guess many can tell that I used Takeshi Kaneshiro as a reference (anyone watched "House of Flying Daggers"?). I mentioned in devART that he's my first major male OC in years, so it's no wonder he receives a lot of attention from my muses.

Ashikase, "drunk" version (hehehe)

Well, after 12 Starmaiden chapters, Ashikase finally gets his looks fleshed out! The de facto antagonist of the story, this guy was a pain in the ass to draw (well, he is a pain in Kouseikei's ass). My muse doesn't like him much either (both writing AND drawing), probably because I hardly consider him to be anything more than a perfect foil to Kouseikei. This is such a shame, because his family past was more delved upon than Kousei's, and was admittedly soppy enough to land a place in a soap opera plot. *snickers*

And since I already spoiled this little detail in DA, might as way say it here: Ashikase and Kouseikei are third cousins, sharing one set of great-great-grandparents (although Ashikase was never aware of it, and Kouseikei only found it out much later on). The father of Kouseikei's paternal grandmother  was the brother of the father of Ashikase's maternal grandfather. Good luck figuring that out.

Similar to what I did for Kousei, I looked at pictures of various famous personalities to somehow jump-start my muse. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone who struck me as "Ashikase" enough, although I did temporarily consider Shin Koyamada, Zo In Sung, and Seiichi Tanabe. I had to completely redo his looks several times before I finally came up with something passable enough. Urk.

Ashikase, "slightly more sane" version

The above pic was just to provide a kind of contrast between Kousei and Ashikase, since the two look decidedly similar with their hair down. As it can be seen, Ashikase favors topknots while Kouseikei prefers low ponytails. I actually had to repeatedly revise his hairstyle, because several times he ended up teetering close to... someone I would rather he not resemble. My muse may not favor Ashikase much, but she's not that evil. *coughs*