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Something I've noted while obsessively combing through three chapters of Death Note looking for reference for the doujin[1] is that - probably due to the need for visual flow and to push the reader's eyes onward, 90% of the time, L is looking towards the left, so we see the left side of his face and head. Unfortunately, due to the same aforementioned need for visual flow, I have to have L looking to the right. Which means that I'm basically making up what I think the right side of his hair looks like.

In the same vein, Light is most often seen with a camera directly at him, or from slightly above, while L is msot often seen with the camera angle directly on him or from slightly below. (I draw the opposite. God only knows why. Massive reference problems.) I'm sure that Obata-sensei is doing that deliberately, but I'll be damned if I can figure out why. When Light goes extra-special-evil, he tends to be shot from below looking up, but for the most part, downwards.

[1] I am as of yet not quite clear on what the difference between 'doujin' and 'doujinshi' is. I shall merrily continue using them at random until someone gets offended enough to let me know.

What, me look it up?? That there's crazy talk!!

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I'm 90% sure that "doujin" is just people being lazy.

Three pages in one day! I never have anything constructive to say about them, really. But the DN manga stuff is interesting. If poses follow the same rules as handwriting, L is more of a forward thinker while Light is more focused on the present. But I doubt that was Obata's intention.

The up-down might reflect the way society at large percieves them--Light is drawn from a conventional angle because he's a conventional (and by extension harmless) person. L gets the funky angles; when Light stops being conventional he gets an even more extreme angle just like L.

Of course, our doujin takes place mostly from Light's POV--I think that's why Light gets more "looking evil" shots than in the manga. "Looking evil" is his inner self, not the self that others percieve. Since he spends more time looking evil, it makes sense that you spend more time drawing him from underneath. I'm sure Light is all-powerful in his own mind too, so that ties into the bottom-up thing.

To further analyze, the point of the original fanfic was to portray an intellectual battle between the two of them; it wouldn't have been interesting if Light and L weren't (somewhat) evenly matched. But the situation gives L a huge advantage. It makes a lot of sense to downplay that advantage in the art.

I'll see if I can't come up with something constructive to say to your pencils.

Interesting thoughts - maybe after all this is over and I have time (hah!) I can make a bigger analysis post. XD

I was going to do some inks tonight, but my %#)(&#(&%# printer stopped responding to me. From what I can gather on the HP support forums, it's probably a faulty power supply. THis doens't stop me, since I still have my old printer, but it'll be annoying because I have to print out on two sheets of paper, tape them together, and then use the lightbox to ink them on manga paper. And I can't do it tonight, since I've got to go buy another ink cartridge before the old printer will work. Arg.

I suppose I should go back and tone the first page then, huh, since I don't seem to have actually done that. Gee, what a concept.

Bah, who wants to finish one thing before starting on the next? It's a stifling way to work.

To the other thing: YES. I would love to see a Death Note analysis. I've heard that one of the biggest selling points of Obata's artwork is that his characters are more expressive than most--they have more facial expressions. I can't rememeber whether I heard this from you or got it from the Jump interviews, though. (arg, it's like thinking through a filter. can't concentrate)

Heh. Don't think you got it from me. :) But it's right. And it's amazing that his characters have such a range and *still* manage to be more ... er, realistic, I guess, than most manga.

And Light looks to the left a lot, too. I ahve my Giant Page o'Raito Hair, a 9x13" printout that I made from cutting-and-pasting many many pictures of Light from DN, then printing it out and managing to close the file before saving it. :/ Anyway, almost every single one, he's facing to the left in some way.

Another thing I've noticed about pro manga vs. amateur -- the pros lamost enver do pure profile shots. They're usually at a 3/4 or 2/3 view of the head, with a lesser amount of straight-on shots, and very very few profiles. And what profiles are done are usually at a slight up or down angle. Obata does this a LOT - I had to look hard to find profiles in the three chapters I've got printed out. And none of the ones with the mouth open more than a smidgen are pure profiles (at least in the chapters I've got). If a character has their mouth wide open, they're at a 3/4 view.

...I'm being very nebulous, aren't I. Sorry, haven't eaten anything all day, am not thinking very clearly. I also meant to say that Death Note is more external than our doujin. (Err, even though it has ridiculous amounts thought exposition.) The manga is more even-handed--it switched between Light and L's POV in consecutive panels, while I stuck with one or the other until the end of a scene. If the manga were prose it would probably be third person omniscient, while the fanfic was more third-person limited.

It would be cool if, in the doujin, the scenes from L's point of view actually showed a different Light than the scenes from Light's POV. Actually I think you've done something like this already--L is usually looking down at Light, but most of Light's scenes show him from that dominating upwards angle.

Nah, you made sense. :) Mind you, I'm pretty damn sleepy so maybe it'll stop making sense when I wake up. ;)

I'll see what I can do about the Light-from-L's-POV in the thing. :)

I use it when being lazy.

Yeah, most people use the abbreviations of the term out of laziness and so, but it has been advised against using 'douji' and 'doujin' for it; the former (commonly used by Germans) actually means 'stupid', and the latter I forgot what it means, but I know it's supposed to be an entirely different word in Japanese too. :/

As for Light looking evil... generally shots from below or or above add to the intensity of just a facial expression alone, as does extra darker shading~ L is most often drawn with the camera angle directly at him by Obata? I suppose that may be to give his figure a calm appearance. Light is the one with all the intensity and agression brewing up, L is the opposite making it happen.

Breaking down and looking it up, the Wikipedia sez that 'doujin' means a fan-derived work, which could be art, manga, computer game, movie, stationery, whatever, and that 'doujinshi' means specifically a manga. So technically they're both correct. although 'doujinshi' is the specific term (and in that case 'doujin' probably sounds funny to a Japanese speaker when using it to refer to somethign specific).

L is drawn most often from the angle of a camera looking slightly up at him from below or directly at him, while Light is directly at him or looking slightly down on him from above.

Hm, I'd have trusted my Japanese-studying friend who told me the thing about doujin. Now another friend tells me that doujin may actually be more common than doujinshi [on Japanese sites - in the same way "boys love" is a lot more usual than "shounen-ai"]. Oh, the things one learns! I'll still stick with doujinshi though.

Heh. It may be a regional thing, too - in some areas of the country one use is more pronounced and in other areas, the other is.

I just asked a Japanese online friend of mine on the subject, here's her answer (http://www.livejournal.com/users/baikautsugi/18625.html?thread=69057#t69057); quite interesting.

Cool, thanks! :D

'90% of the time, L is looking towards the left, so we see the left side of his face and head.'
I've grasped it also. seems I was not the only one with such maniac behaviour. *sweatdrops*

I might not have noticed it except that I need to draw the *right* side of him. Arg! At least I have finally found a couple of instances where he's looking to the right.

It's the same with Light, too - very few pictures of the right side of his face and head, many of the left side.

>It's the same with Light, too - very few pictures of the right side of his face and head, many of the left side.

Now that you mention it, you're right... when I wanted to draw him from the right side once and was browsing through the DN pages I saved to see how his funky bangs flopped, I took awhile till I found some.

Yup. It's obviously somehow tied into the visual flow of the story, because it's not something you notice when reading - it doesn't stick out. It's only if you're deliberately looking for the right sides of their heads that you notice how few of them there are.

(Chapter 18 for the right side of L's head, IIRC.)

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