Recently, a close online friend, budding illustrative artist, and emphatic supporter of EF’s work asked me to critique her latest piece of art. I jokingly replied, “My opinion isn’t really worth very much. I’m a writer and digital designer.” To paraphrase her response:

Because you’re producing doujinshi with KOU, I trust your insight into how I can improve my style.

So, of course, I gave her a full critique and she was a happy camper. I left it at that…until seeing a piece of exceptional art today filled with grade-school level compliments along the lines of “this is so good!”. Though this is fine for people on the outside, it’s one of my creative pet peeves. And so I came up with this:

Art From The Ether is a [bi]weekly experiment to share artists that either myself or KOU come across that have impressed one of us to a great degree. Let’s see how it goes?

Today, I received a tweet in my timeline from @fredrin, the owner of the MegaTokyo property, expressing his love for the sketchiness used within the confines of a “very minimal palette.” Had to check out this mrFatso for myself.

Boy was he right, and summed it up wonderfully.

This piece was what Fred linked to initially. I immediately could see what he meant by the broad usage of black, white, and shades of gray in a almost fearless manner. The lace accents are of significant note.

However, it was this piece that truly made me want to blog about them. The simple complexity of each varied stroke to form the clothes, hair, frills, and lovely hat are just spellbinding.

Though the splash of kabuki-style accent along her eyes (as opposed to the lips <3) for an even more dynamic depiction of exquisite, high-class flair is surely what makes this piece for me, the translucent illusion created on her sleeve by way of carefully layered grays is just a fabulous effect.

The face and expressive body language accentuated by classy, Umineko-like style of dress are unmistakably well suited for each other.

The control of brush sizes used throughout to control flow, sharpness, and depth is also noteworthy, an advantage to digital art that I find to be a pro- against traditional.

Understanding that this is a sketch piece does allow lax freedom and marginal error – this is purely an objective opinion piece if you haven’t noticed. With that in mind, my only point of dismaying opinion lies in the lack of love to her upper sleeve’s bottom fringe as was given to the lovely rounded shoulder flaring up from her shoulders.