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| Sheik, the "ninja" from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time |
Continuing with fan art, this is a depiction of the ninja-like Sheik from the Legend of Zelda -game series that I drew for a friend. For online I added speedlines and the Zelda logo into the background to give it some spunk. The appearance of Sheik is somewhat a combination of the original Ocarina of Time and recent Super Smash Bros. versions, but with also some of my own slight alterations.
This image is by far my best character drawing to date. It has a strong sense of movement and action, the pose perfectly depicts the agility and determination of the character and both the perspective and body relations are pretty much correct. The image on the back is the only thing that I should have fixed into a proper angle, but I only noticed the fault after inking. So too late to change that. Also the backhand wielding the knife turned out to be exceptionally troublesome. Otherwise, I'm feeling quite proud. Next time I might even use some colors. Seriously, I might.
As I've mentioned before, the Japanese cartoonist Masamune Shirow is my greatest role-model with his highly detailed illustrations and dynamic depiction of action. With this image, I once again feel I'm getting much closer to that. And as a matter of fact, I have a great example of what I mean right here. :)
Breaking down "The knife fight" in Masamune Shirow's Appleseed
The article above is an in-depth deconstruction of one of his best action scenes, which shows wonderfully his mastery in composing complicated fight sequences into a perfect set of still images. Drawing a fight is one of the hardest things to do in comics. What is the correct size and shape of a frame, the direction of movement within and between frames, the window of time between each frame, the positions of character and items, etc.? When it comes to depict action, all these questions and many more are more important than ever. You don't want the fight to be too long nor too short, so that the story keeps going forward but the reader doesn't get lost. The imagery has to be dynamic, not stale. The eye of the viewer needs to be guided so that it moves fluently through the images. If you're interested in drawing comics with elaborate fight scenes, I truly recommend checking this article out.
