Silas Zee: Kaori is a Bad Ass

Kaori is a Bad Ass

2016.06.14

When Kaori's performing in the anime she looks taller and ten years older. And she's got this game-on badass look, something I really wanted to try drawing myself. :3

This actually began life as a thumbnail I doodled while brainstorming for a bigger piece, but I liked it so much that I decided to flesh it out. It was tough since I'm not used to drawing this small anymore (the full-body pencils fit well within a regular 8.5" x 11" board) so I handled all of the details and changes with kid gloves. XD

When I scanned it I did so at double my normal scanning resolution because I wanted the inks to be as close to the pencils as possible, so the cleanup process was like double the headaches they usually are for me. I also cheated a little bit and stole a lot of the color flats from my last Kaori piece. But my excuse is that they took so long to pick in the first place that I'm not REALLY cheating...right? ^_^;

Originally I had a really fancy background in place, an elaborate star field with Kaori's silhouette floating behind her. I wanted something dark to make her pop more since she's in her white dress here. But the contrast was a bit too much I guess and I was never really satisfied with it but didn't know how to fix it. Then a happy accident came about when I was fixing some little things. I popped the pencil layer back and saw that it created a neat look behind the finished colors. I tweaked the hue a bit and VOILA! Artsy fartsy background and the sketchy lines from the pencils still make the dress pop even with the bright negative space! :D