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[Sketch] Kingdom Hearts II - Surge (Axel/Roxas, PG13)
My quest to post more my art more freely continues! This can't properly be termed a doodle, seeing as this picture was planned and is heading in the serious inking and colouring direction, but this is definitely one of the less pretty stages of production and the one it will stagnate at until I work up the balls to try to ink the keyblade.
Fandoms/Characters/Pairings: Kingdom Hearts II: Axel/Roxas
Rating: PG13? There is the nekkid, but nothing showing?
Crit/Feedback: Always! Especially on stuff like this: sketches for planned big fancy pieces. Correcting mistakes early on is good! Although, usual spiel -- it's a sketch, lots of issues, etc PLEASE DON'T JUDGE T_T
God, I fail at perspective. And fabric. Anyway, a small dash of colour so it's obvious what's what. In my head, this takes place right after Roxas fights Riku (hence using Oblivion here, may it rot in beautifully detailed hell) for the first time -- he's pretty pissed and confused, in that uniquely Roxas kind of combination, and he kind of barged in on Axel in his room. And kind of pinned him. With his keyblade.
... the Roxas in my head is kind of aggressive.
I lament greatly not being able to show more of Axel's torso (you can still see the maquette outline of it in blue), but in exchange I get a shot of Roxas's butt? God I feel like a pedophile now, thanks.
x-post: Nowhere! I'm shy enough about sharing un-perfectly-polished work as it is D=
Fandoms/Characters/Pairings: Kingdom Hearts II: Axel/Roxas
Rating: PG13? There is the nekkid, but nothing showing?
Crit/Feedback: Always! Especially on stuff like this: sketches for planned big fancy pieces. Correcting mistakes early on is good! Although, usual spiel -- it's a sketch, lots of issues, etc PLEASE DON'T JUDGE T_T
God, I fail at perspective. And fabric. Anyway, a small dash of colour so it's obvious what's what. In my head, this takes place right after Roxas fights Riku (hence using Oblivion here, may it rot in beautifully detailed hell) for the first time -- he's pretty pissed and confused, in that uniquely Roxas kind of combination, and he kind of barged in on Axel in his room. And kind of pinned him. With his keyblade.
... the Roxas in my head is kind of aggressive.
I lament greatly not being able to show more of Axel's torso (you can still see the maquette outline of it in blue), but in exchange I get a shot of Roxas's butt? God I feel like a pedophile now, thanks.
x-post: Nowhere! I'm shy enough about sharing un-perfectly-polished work as it is D=
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Considering I'm in a serious Axel/Roxas stage, this was exactly what I wanted to see. Moarplz. :p
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Thanks so much for commenting (I crave ego boosts, especially when I am exposing my SOFT FLESHY INTERIOR like this), and I hope you like the finished product... whenever it happens... *eyes Oblivion* ._.
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OMG SO EMBARASSED KL;ZDJF;KLJA I DO NOT THINK HE SAW BUT STILL
...WILL COMMENT LATER
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Sev, are you looking at porn at work? ;)
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I was just waiting for the inevitable, "Oh! I play that game! That Kingdom Hearts! ...What they doing?"
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My level of excitement for this release? 115%
My fears that Squeenix will crush my tender hopes and retcon my favorite childhood game into oblivion? 50%
Will I buy a DS just to play this game, anyway? Y
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(By the way, get Phantom Hourglass, if for no other reason than that it makes 300% use of the DS's TOUCHING CAPABILITIES. Pretty much everything is done via stylus. It is VERY SEXY. I get to TOUCH THINGS okay I'll stop now especially since by "things" I mean "Link" and in this game like in Windwaker Link pretty much looks like a 10-year-old and stop looking at me like that I'm not a pedophile >.>)
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I - I am such a bad gamer. I need to actually play games. >.>
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BUT BOOSTING MY EGO WILL HELP ME INK IT FASTER. Thanks XD
I learn new things about my flist's shipping preferences every day! XD
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We ALL know what my true OTP is...>:D
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Also! Yey for skinny as heck Axel and Roxas butt. They are lovely, lovely things.
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And I do rather have a thing for toppy Roxas >.>
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I like how they both have their hands on their weapons, though Axel's hand is rather jarring in the way in which it is completely huge, as is his firewheel. This has the effect of making Roxas look very delicate, which works for them, but I think there must be a way to do it without Axel's hand being such a huge focal point (my problem with this is that it detracts from the kiss and the mid-action violence of Roxas barging in and jumping on Axel to just kiss him senseless, weapons poised and all.)
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So! I try to explain myself. Axel's hand reaching for his chakram is big because, well, I actually intended for them to be a major focus of the picture. The idea goes something like this: Roxas just kind of barged in there, weapon drawn. Axel was understandably alarmed and reached for his weapon, but Roxas interrupts him by, well, jumping him. And -- Axel's stopped reaching for his weapon then... but he's still not entirely relaxed. The idea is, they don't really quite trust each other, whatever is happening physically aside. But there IS something there, because Axel, suspicious git that he is, has managed to relax a little. Does that make sense?
I was really trying to work the hands to convey a lot of this. Axel's left hand, the one Roxas has pinned with Oblivion -- I tried to catch that at a particular moment, right after he's over being startled and is cautiously beginning to take Roxas's hand around the keyblade -- and so in a few moments Roxas will make the keyblade disappear. I admit that this hand is not awesomely done -- you would have been able to see the structure of the hand, and how his fingers are curling around one by one, if I hadn't dimmed the undersketch for posting purposes and zoomed out like 300% (I work on pics at huge size).
FINALLY on to the hand that threw you off, Axel's right. THIS hand is supposed to be caught right as he stopped actually reaching for the chakram. I tried to use perspective to make it (and the chakram) big relative to the rest of the picture so that the eye is drawn to it -- because the focus of this picture is supposed to be the trust issues, not the tonsil tennis.
However! Once I read your comment I realized that I had probably done this rather inelegantly, which is why I'm so happy you brought it up.
So! There's my cards on the table: I'm trying to highlight the trust issues; I am trying to create visual (and hence psychological) tension between the kissing and the weapon-reaching; but I'm looking for a better way to do it, something that isn't, as you pointed out, jarring.
So, finally, in answer to your specific criticism:
I like how they both have their hands on their weapons
Yay! That's supposed to happen!
Axel's hand is rather jarring in the way in which it is completely huge, as is his firewheel.
Boo! Jarring isn't quite what I wanted D=
This has the effect of making Roxas look very delicate, which works for them
Yay! I DO want Roxas to look delicate-but-aggressive, or well. I'm not expressing it well, but I want both those things. Somehow.
but I think there must be a way to do it without Axel's hand being such a huge focal point (my problem with this is that it detracts from the kiss and the mid-action violence of Roxas barging in and jumping on Axel to just kiss him senseless, weapons poised and all.)
... Crap. I DO want it as a focal point, kind of, but I don't want to detract per se, from the rest of the picture -- the two parts, the kissing and and weapons-related parts, are supposed to be in tension, not in... jarring dis-harmony with one another, if that makes sense. I like the phrase you used -- mid-action violence -- and I really want that to happen for this picture.
So... I hate to ask yet more of you, since you already helped me see some flaws so well, but do you know if, given what I tried to explain about what I'm trying to convey with this picture, you could give me any advice on doing so better?
I tried redrawing Axel's hand a couple of times to make the flow of lines from arm to fingers more natural/less abrupt and hopefully less jarring, but I don't want to lose the tension in his hand, since this is supposed to be tense moment... or part of the problem might be that this IS just the sketch, without any lighting or anything to help get the focus right?
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I think that with lighting and colouring, you could definitely do more to balance the focus between the two things. One way you could do it is to shift the perspective of the picture a little bit so Axel's hand isn't quite so much in the foreground, but then make his chakrams very bright (pale silver/lots of light spots, perhaps against a darker background) to make them stand out equivalently to the kiss? I think this is the kind of thing where it'll be much better balanced with the addition of more colour and shading.
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I think! What you said about shifting perspective gave me an idea! I don't want to shift the perspective too much, because then none of the rest of their bodies will be in the position I want, but I CAN change Axel's arm slightly! I will have to work it out; right now his arm is lines up with other compositional lines in a very specific way, but I'll give it a shot!
Again, thanks for the helpful comment! It's really good for me when people point things out like this; it helps me think more about how to make my drawings say what I want -- or just, you know, draw better (see Leon/Cloud failure). Thanks! =D
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How have you been anyway? I don't even know what state you're in. Did you get married this summer?
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Ahaha, I don't remember -- I know I loved Pokemon (and still do) and also Sonic the Hedgehog, which was an American cartoon and comic series (which I also still love).
Nope, wasn't married this summer. Might not be married anytime soon, or ever. Depends on the tax/financial benefits! We're fine as we are =)
I'm in Virginia for break, working, but otherwise I'm generally in Oregon!