For those who haven't read the story this is an illustation from a scene in ch. 4 of dd's fic "Higher Education". In the scene Kaname is walking down to the front of her classroom to explain cell structure to the class with Sousuke.
dd wrote:As Kaname walked down the stairs, she noticed the black look those girls were giving her. She smiled in return, lifting her nose in the air.
Too bad, ladies!
Not paying attention, Kaname tripped over an umbrellas someone had left in the aisle. She started to fall.
She never hit the floor. Sousuke had moved ever so swiftly, catching her.
And below is the progression this picture took to its final stage - **Original sketch page. I wasn't trying to figure out the layout at this stage, but rather get an idea of what each frame should have in it.
**Manga page layout. Transferred and redrawn onto high quality manga paper so it could be inked. Changed both K&S slightly in the main frame so that Kaname is more facing him, not simply seen from a profile view.
**Inked page. Inked on paper then touched up in PS some. Even though it's technically unfinished without screentones I think I like this one best.
**Shaded and finished - LARGE file. and for those on slower connections - Small file. To be honest I think I overdid it some, but practice makes perfect I guess. The feathers are custom brushes I downloaded off the web, along with all the patterns and two of the speedline graphics. The speedlines over Sousuke's face to the far right were a custom brush I made using this tutorial from PolyKarbon.com. Bless that man from now until forever for his wonderfully instructive site.
I'm so tired out from making this picture!! Manga artist have assistants to do backgrounds, shading, and screentones for a reason! I might just stick with lineart in the future... Nevertheless, it was lots and lots of fun
Feedback on both the inked and screentoned versions is much appreciated. I probably won't act on any suggestions for changes simply because I'm so tired of working on this picture at the moment, but I will remember and try to implement them in the future.
Next picture I'm doing is from this scene, mentioned in ch. 7 of the same story, but it actually happens offscreen. Kaname's been shot saving Sousuke from an assailant.
It's funny what things really don't make for such great on-camera action in written form, but are THE scenes of choice for drawing. This is just the rough sketch, so page layout and the action in the frames themselves will be altered slightly when it's transferred to high quality manga paper.dd wrote:“Sousuke carried you all of the way here in his arms, even though he was injured himself. He wouldn’t let anyone else handle you. He sat with you through the night, even though he kept falling asleep.
A big shout out to dd again for writing such excellent fanfiction it actually motivates me to draw! I hope there's lots and lots more chapters past #9 for Higher Education to come, if I can keep myself from burning out there's many more scenes I want to take a shot at, and the story is just too good. (EDIT - I caught your a/n on ff.net, YAYAYAYAY!!!) One thing I should add - DUDE! how the heck do you write so much???? I copy/pasted the story into a word file to keep for myself, and it's like 56 pages! That's with minimal margin space and 9 point font!
-arm hurts from working on last picture so long....
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