Rurouni Kenshin. You've probably heard of this show recently and even in the past few months as the film is concluding its story with a two-part film. I guess it's a great idea to have Rurouni Kenshin as last week's art challenge on ArtPark's DTIYS. We were given the freedom to choose which character would we want to draw.
Having only seen the first part of the live action (I haven't even watched the anime too), I only remember one character, Himura Kenshin.
Thinking of what to draw, I remembered a meme posted last May. And that's what I drew for the challenge.
"Take A Deep Breath"
Rurouni Kenshin is a popular anime and it was also lucky its live action was well-received and among the few which got the approval of the people. I, too, agree that Rurouni Kenshin is among those anime which has a great live action film/s.
The first sequel of the live action was released in 2012 and I remember watching it with my brother. I didn't understand much of the story but I was amazed of how good it is, from the actors, stunts, and the overall quality of the film. I'm glad they were able to complete all the film sequels, though it sucks the release was not as grand as before due to pandemic. But you can still watch the films on streaming sites like Netflix, for people outside Japan.
Well, I digress, let's go back to the drawing! Last May, when the first part of the film was released, a Twitter notification popped on my phone and I guess I was meant to see it because I usually just swipe Twitter notifications but not for this one.
When I opened the notification, I was greeted by this photo:
A Himura Kenshin in battle stance edited with a Jenga tower on the side. @_KEN_ZEN _, the user who posted the meme, also made it look like Kenshin was concentrating on carefully pulling out a Jenga block. The meme itself was already funny. However, it went 10x funnier when 9GAG retweeted it with the caption, "Take a deep breath".
The caption was taken from the lyrics of the song "Renegades" by rock band ONE OK ROCK, the official soundtrack of the film. The band had provided songs for all the sequels of the film since the band vocalist, Taka, and Himura Kenshin actor, Sato Takeru, are best friends.
Here's a close up photo of Kenshin pulling a Jenga block!
I guess the lyrics and caption fits well with the meme, because one would definitely take a deep breath to calm and concentrate to avoid the tower from falling while pulling a block.
Drawing Process
First, I want to mention that I like this artwork a lot. ❤️ Second, the process of drawing this was a little frustrating. It took me roughly three days to complete this artwork because of the creases of Kenshin's clothes, especially the pants/hakama. I can't remember how many times I've said "ugh" in my mind while putting shadows on the clothes. Lol.
I was kind of doubtful at the beginning whether I can pull off the skin color, I'm glad it turned out alright. Well, according to my standards. I used Color Burn blending mode for the shadow of his face while I used Glow and Add Glow blending mode for the fire behind him. Then I topped the whole drawing with an oil paint texture, set the blending mode to Overlay and lowered the opacity.
Here's a timelapse video of how I drew Kenshin:
Medium: Digital (Wacom Intuos)
Program: Clip Studio Paint Debut
Time: Three days
Collage made on Photoshop CS6
Timelapse edited on Premiere CS6
Have you watched Rurouni Kenshin or even its live actions?
