Artwork: For Us...

Drawn By: WrittenDusk

There are four main sources of inspiration for this drawing:  

1. Watching the Chinese Drama "Find Yourself". (Great drama, highly recommended.)
2. Listening to the song "過客" sang by "阿涵". (One way to translate: "Passerby" sang by "Ah Han".)
3. Seeing the view count on my "Reminiscence" drawing increase. Haha. (Definitely had influence.)
4. Watching G.E.M's music video for her song "Long After".

Watching the drama really put me in the mood, and listening to the song reinforced it and directed the mood towards a slightly different direction. Then seeing how one of my drawings, with a similar theme, is doing well recently made the decision to draw this easy.

To be honest I was going to draw this sooner or later since it's something I really want to capture. I am very proud that I accomplished it. It really turned out great. I do wish I could do more with the backgrounds again, but that'll have to be for next time.

I really hope you could feel the emotion in this drawing! I'll link all the references and inspirations at the end.

This whole drawing's focus is to capture the nuanced emotions that a person has in that emotional state. What I was going for was: the feeling of understanding that you need to let go, and you do; but your heart still says no. The expression carries an innate ambiguity, so my specific aim may not be what you exactly feel. But this is also what makes this drawing such a success to me. While I am very proud of myself for being able to capture this expression, I am also equally excited about the style I drew the character in.

Of course there are still nitpicks, BUT, I feel like I finally have something. Having been developing and working towards this for awhile now, the style I drew this in has the anime to realism ratio I've been aiming for. As I prefer the aesthetics of anime in drawings to realism, it is important to me to keep it anime. But it was difficult for me to express nuanced emotions in a single drawing, as I continued to ignore the merits of realism. Anime style, at its roots, is a simplified and exaggerated representation of reality. Being used in animation allows nuanced emotions to still be expressed through a sequence; through multiple drawings. But within a single illustration, or drawing, I wasn't able to do the same with the simplifications. It is from here that I finally learn to truly appreciate the merits of realism; to truly understand that there are things that can't be achieved with preference alone. 

It may sound obvious, as usual, but what I realized would improve my drawings was in the details we are usually unaware of within reality: specific volumes, skin folds, and subtle muscle movements. These were the subtle details I've added to my style. In this drawing's case the subtle details are on the character's face, defining and distorting it in order to express the emotion: how the smile pushes up her cheek and the muscles around her left eye contract according to the degree she wince. I also put extra attention to make sure it really feels like she is wearing her clothes; trying to more accurately show her volume through her clothes. Combined, this allows me to give this character a feeling of tangibility that was never present in my older drawings. At least it feels that way to me.

Of course this all wouldn't be possible if my skills haven't improved. Whether it is in technical execution, or mindset adjustments they are all integral to my growth. It feels great to see results like this. It's these moments and achievements that encourages me to continue drawing and creating.

References:

Drama: "Find Yourself" (下一站是幸福)
Song: "阿涵 - 過客"
Song: "G.E.M - Long After" (From around 2:56 - 3:04 are the main references for the expression)
Clothing: Yesstyle