WIP: Evi x Irina

Hey guys! Hope you’re all doing well! Here’s a piece I’ve been working on this week--a little Evi x Irina drawing. Evi is the blond character, and Irina is Tanya’s wayward sister... what can I say? :))))

I wanted to do something uplifting. For purely personal reasons, It’s been an emotionally challenging few months and so I wanted to capture the mood of two people who have also struggled, but despite that, are finding happiness and feeling loved. I also wanted to draw more character interactions--it’s been something lacking in my gallery!

Challenges:

Since I don’t draw enough characters interacting, it’s challenging for me--surprise, surprise. It almost feels like a puzzle, where you have to figure out how to fit two or more figures on the same page (making sure the entire gesture and composition looks good), but then also try to get the anatomy correct for each individual. The good news is that it’s forcing me to plan ahead more with my thumbnails--playing around with shapes, poses, and composition before I concentrate too much on the details.

I’ve also never drawn people kissing before, even though it’s something I really like seeing in other people’s art. Because of that, I definitely needed to do some research! Importantly, I was interested in learning how to stylize a kiss, almost anime/manga style. I find the simplicity but suggestiveness and expressiveness appealing.

In looking things up, it appeared that one of the key basics was creating some overlap or tilt with the faces. Here’s a simple tutorial I just found on Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.com/pin/798051996469234929/

But the idea is to have something like this (IDK, here are some marshmallow heads to demonstrate):

But I obviously didn’t really follow those guidelines! Irina’s head is more straight-on, rather than tilted the opposite direction of Evi’s *le gasp*! This was, however, somewhat of a conscious decision. I did try a tilt, but scrapped it. I wanted her to look more like she’s a bit caught off guard with a kiss (but also pleasantly so), rather than fully leaning into it and engaging. Maybe it doesn’t look as dynamic as it could be, but at this point in time, it feels like a sacrifice worth making by telling this particular story/conveying this particular mood.

I don’t think this will be my only time drawing kisses, so maybe next time I’ll give that full tilt a try ;)

Cheers,

Katherine

PS -- Irina herself is still a tricky character to draw! I’ve drawn her a fair number of times (and she’s all over my social media banners right now), but given that she has similar features to Tanya, there is that ambiguity (especially since my default is to draw Tanya). I guess in the near future I ought to force myself to draw a full expressions sheet for Irina or draw the Kareva sisters together to really understand their similarities and differences. So many projects in my pipeline!!