telophase | (no subject)

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!!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

'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.)