The Alphabet Challenge | Y

Y is fo Yoko Littner

From the very start of this challenge, I have had in mind who I wanted to depict for Y. Yoko is one of the lead characters from the anime Gurren Laggan, the token female armed with a rifle and a rather light amount of clothing (characters in this anime started out living underground). Without a doubt Gurren Lagann is my favourite anime, for it's art style and the premise of the show itself.

Now onto the creation of Yoko as you see her here. I was decide on giving her the digital job, since the only other entrant to be illustrated digitally would be Eve, my second ever attempt at Photoshop art. While my style on this software has not changed much, I have learnt enough to make the job quicker and work more confidently. Perhaps take a look back at Eve and see if you can spot any differences in how I work with Photoshop?

I wanted to depict Yoko as close to her style as possible, rather than draw her in my Drawson style. in the end I seemed to settle for my more realistic style, with the anime face. I took a few studies of Yoko since this would be the first time I drew her and oh my, she was not an easy character to draw. My biggest struggle lied within her head, getting the face to look like Yoko's face and matching her hair style which I inevitably simplified.

I did try for a more dynamic pose but given how challenging Yoko was proving the be, I decided to play safe and draw her standing (with a little more liveliness) and have Yoko point a finger gun. After a bit of struggle and experimentation I was settled on what I was going to do and what style to use; you may notice I even considered using the art style from 'Panty and Stocking'!

Like with Eve, I drew her traditionally and then scanned her onto a computer to do the Photoshop magic, which took half the time that I spent on Eve. This time I was going to do cell shading, although in hindsight I would have liked to try the gradient style shading I had learnt from 'DrawingWiffWaffles'. Regardless, I think the colour work is superb on this one and I even changed the outline colour to a very dark red to ease up on the contrast.

I honestly wish this was how the Alphabet Challenge was ending, since I am so proud of how Yoko turned out. While comparing her to Ace Lightning would be a bit like apples and oranges, I get the feeling there may be a show of progress somewhere. Ace was the first piece on the blog I think and since I have grown confidence with drawing in a more realistic style, even though the cartoon style is where I belong.

Lastly I want to thank everyone for being patient with this one, both Yoko and Z were intended to be released in December and I still produced both in time for those originals deadlines, but I didn't want them being outshined by the Santa and Elle series being published at the time. Z will be released before the month is out, and then that's it for the Alphabet Challenge.

Have you seen the letter X? If not, you can check it out on my page for the 'Alphabet Challenge' as well as previous entries. Look out for Z, the final entry, coming soon!