Yuumi – Process and Composition Journal

PROCESS

 Steps 5 (SAI master) and 6 (Photoshop master) files will be on this month folder. 

• 1. Idea sketch. I planned to paint above the line-art and for this a rough sketch would be enough to start painting, I used a ground color similar to the final scene overall color.
• 2. Mood sketch. I made a color mood sketch to have a rough idea of what colors I would use for each part and use it as base to sample them. Here I also tested how a leg down variation would look.
• 3. SAI painting. Using the mood sketch as base I started painting above it. I like to start with faces like in this case. 4. Continued refining section by section in this process. Scarf and then body.
• 5. SAI final. Added the background details and cleaned the whole piece. This concludes the painting phase on SAI.
• 6. Photoshop final. I adjusted first the colors and then the values to make it more atmospheric, also added a tilt blur effect to enhance the perspective. Finally added a grain texture on top.

COMPOSITION

I had in mind the rule of thirds to position the main points of interest. Eyes usually are what people look first on any picture so I usually use that principle to place my starting focusing point. The points of interest here are at equal distances from the center, placed on the grid like a mirror making the composition feel centered (same for the tilt).

The main gesture of the character body is really simple, and arch following the spine more or less, and all other body parts are aligned to make them look like a whole action instead of spare parts.

The book's upper edge is making a contrasting line which helps to give contrast to the direction of the gesture. Contrast in a picture helps making it more interesting and in this case the book edges (up and bottom) also helps to position the character as laying in a plane and add a sense of perspective to the scene. For any contrast to work well is recommended to have hierarchy, in this case the vertical lines are dominating while horizontal one are short and few, used sparely.

Finally the whole scene is titled in an angle with lines going out (head cross thing and spine of book) from two points in the opposite direction. This type of scene tilt is called a Dutch angle and helps to add dynamism to a composition (specially on film). Its accentuated because of a receding perspective with like the head going out, and I also made use of this to make the bottom appear bigger! xD

An interesting note about the scene... this appears to be a solo image at first glance, and depending who you ask or your head-canon/preference maybe it is. But in reality there are 4 characters on the scene. Its Yuumi, the book, the magic yellow snake thing from the official art (which it may or may not be controlled by Yuumi, I left it open), and finally according to Yuumi's eye-line sight the viewer.