Yoji Shinkawa study

Improving line weight 

Yoji's line art gives his work both a comic book or anime feel but upon close inspection he only uses the line art as a emphasis of a form turning rather than random lines placed throughout the drawing. He is much more decisive about where he puts his lines. For example in the portrait on the left we see that the darkest spots are found above the eyes, under the nose, the crevice of the mouth and below the lip. These are our darkest areas where ambient occlusion is happening and he decides to emphasis this with connecting his line art to dark sharp shapes in these areas. Indeed you could say the line art is generally concentrated and connected to all the main features of the face and he uses white space and more sparse lines to show a form turning that is not near the features. He does this to keep our attention at the features. 

A perfect example is the two lines and a light value shape for the side of the head where the temple lays. We can then guess that the lighting is coming from the top and to his right since this is also the direction of the shadow under his nose which cuts left.  Its also interesting to note that to show the change in planes when it comes to the cheekbone area he uses a simple shape to show a rather complex plane change. since the cheekbone is such a complicated area to draw its worth studying and breaking down how he uses this grayer shape with a few lines to change the planes. 

Overall when I take the line art and trace over them I notice that his lines are used to hold the shapes in their place but that does not mean that he uses line exclusively to show a form changing, but he uses a mix of lines to show sharp turns in a form where light would not be reaching and we see this clearly in the darkest spots around his crotch, his neck, the creases in his pant legs..etc. His line art follows a certain zig zag motion in some parts of the drawing and he does a great job of showing folds by emphasizing both sides of the fold in the clothing. 

Shape language

Looking at the shadow shape on the cheek again we notice something else when we break the shadow shapes down that help show the turn of form: the primary shape here is the triangle. The triangle finds its way into nearly every shadow shape on his body. Its not a triangle shape per say  but the shapes are sharp and in some areas they have counterbalances of curved lines to give the shape more design. This is an element of shape design found throughout art and specifically stylized art where it is a rhythm of straight and curve lines that make a piece look interesting. 

His shapes on the face though are often sharp with only curved lines on the far right side of the eye showing the lip of the eye or an eyelash. The dark shapes merge with the iris and the crevice of the eye and this is also where we get curves which contrast against the straight edged shapes of the brow. Below I've gone through and broken down all of the major shadow shapes and Ive done some sketches both from memory and reference to use for future illustrations I do. 

What makes his shapes interesting here is that they are big, and are often connected over multiple parts of the anatomy. In one section the shadow shapes may start off with a long curve on the outside of the leg for instance but it changes size, shape and angle on the inside. Some areas feel like an arrowhead or maybe even the silhouette of a space ship. These shadow shapes also tell us about the gesture, his weight is more on his right leg than his left since this is where we find the biggest shapes. 

Form study of head

I found the form of the head shown here to be pretty interesting and the design of the form underneath the skin is so compelling to look at that I decided i would break it down and do some cognitive studies of it , emphasizing only the plane changes. We can also see the way he arrranges the shapes is as if they are all converging in one swoop downwards like I noted on my third attempt. This is interesting and is something I will change about my own portrait forms that have the habit of sticking outwards.

Color

There is nothing really super complicated about the color but it is good to note that the clothes he wears are all neutral tones. It shows what can be done with colors that havve a good amount of saturation and a good amount of grey can do. For instance the jacket is a blue grey in both the shadows local color and highlights. The pants are similarly done but the pants local color is a dull grey yellow with the shadows a small amount of red is found in the shadows. We see the dull grey yellows get some expression in the shoes and obviously our highlight of the color goes to the peach color in the face, this has the highest saturation.