音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

I did make a great progress, that I finished the newest artwork in only 2 months (as the previous one took 5 months)! xD
So as usual, today it's mainly about my work memories on this piece~

Title: 三日月の彩語り
Read as "Mikaduki no Ayagatari", literally means "Harmonic Whisper In A Crescent Night".
and I clarify it's never an on-purpose borrow from "katana-gatari"!

Shikata Akiko's orgel album "ato no matsuri" was released in the end of last year, including rearrangements plus two new tracks: "tsukikage ni shizumu" and "kakurenbo". Both are pretty. But when the very first track flowed out, my soul was immediately sucked into her grotesquely fantastic world of wokashi. So orient! I loved the melody -- although soon I sadly knew half was written with 7 evil sharps... ~_~
Near the end of the drafting stage, I was already trying to make this a counterpoint work to "Izayoi no Yumekakushi" that I did in last year.

Outline & Base colouring & Shadowing

The initial scribble draft was shaped in early February, and I attempted to depict more details before pushing it into the digital step. Right now I still have the old drafts; they don't look good and I bet I'd never change my mind. This was exactly why I redid the entire draft in the end of May, and got it into a basic shape in early June.
The process of drawing the kimono patterns was always the most fun part!
One difference from my early plan was, I ended up with floral patterns instead of the "white bunny and black kitten" duet; thus I also didn't use either black or white for Eriko's hair ornament. A real link: while playing kancolle, Noshiro's hair style kept triggering me applying the same style to my girls!
The following shadowing was done a month later on July 2nd. Now I'm obviously getting better at this task. Especially with the hair sheen effect (thanks to CLIP STUDIO PAINT).

Once I began to pick up a new style, I found it's hard (or almost impossible) for me to go back (and of course no one wants to go back to a lower state). Finding a free-use image and do some visual tweaks won't suit my preferrence any more. Since last year I've been doing the background all on my own, except those with repeated patterns like chiyogami..
But the first question was the overall ambience. Although I drew something together with the renewed draft, I didn't feel like to follow that design (perhaps it's due to what my brain wanted was too hard for my hands).
I began a new round of background fitting, starting with a list of key words. I wished if there were a title ready to use, it might be easier for the background design. However, I'm so used to give the title at the very last, so this loop was never connected.
Solely from the inspiration music, there should be moon and water. I played around with many candidate objects, and temporarily decided to have a flower boat as the main prop. Yet I changed my mind before I even got started. The track itself is in a typical orient scale, my girls are wearing in a orient style, so the background has to gather some orient aura!
It flowed like this: moon, water, torii's 'distant silhouette, a route marked by lanterns, and sakura petals scattering around.

↓ That's it!

DELICACY ZERO?! But a draft doesn't need much love. The water looks good here because it was taken from a real photo.. xD

Also, forget the mandala I doodled last time, it was mainly for fun. I never imaged to use it as a background for THIS work.... ^^;

Then 2 weeks after, the final finished version is at the very beginning -- the art part was done on July-18, but I took a whole night to think for a good "paired" title.

I want to still add that the starry sky was based on a real spring star map~

I can't compose a fugue with gorgeous counterpoint segments, but at least I can do some resembled counterpoints visually.

First, the title readings match! Again, I spent a whole night to find a proper title!! Second, they were both inspired from Shikata Akiko's "wokashi" series, so of course the characters wear orient styled outfits.
Main hues were set to be blue and red, which are contrast enough and also easy to balance. More on colours. This one is a spring (indicated by sakura) blue sky with a small crescent. The other one is a autumn (indicated by higanbana) red sky with a huge full moon.

Is this enough to call the two counterpoints? (o・ω・o)

When I just bought CLIP STUDIO, I said I wanted to "remaster" some of my previous works, and "Izayoi" was one that I want to retouch soon. Besides, I've got a few drafts that I want to make real. Hopefully it can get even quicker -- at least back to my old pace, 1 piece per 1~2month!! I've been so late this year!

Nonetheless, tonight I got a new draft. -__- (with this face I'm actually happy..)
For the coming anniversary, inspired by Shikata Akiko's "library song"!!
I'm excited, and I really wish I can... no, I shall believe,
I WILL MAKE IT.