"Rebel AW 0005"

. . . And what was that I once said about how I intended to come back to this concept of Jamil with long hair? ^_~

But seriously, I intend for this to be a semi-illustration for a flashback scene in a GX fic I plan to start working on one of these days. In that flashback, which obviously takes place in AW 0005 (thus the title) and would make Jamil around 20 years old at the time, I plan to depict him as a wild-haired, rebellious drifter type who's already begun his quest to rescue and protect Newtypes, although clearly not in the same way he would go about doing so later on in the actual GX series in AW 0015. One may ask why I chose the type of clothing I did for this picture, but because AW 0005 is still about the time when the Earth is in the midst of the nuclear winter caused by the colony drop, people would likely be wearing different types of hoods and cloaks to protect themselves against the blowing wind, dust, and other elements. Not only that, but in addition to the long, wild hair, it adds this nifty effect of rebelliousness and "What the hell are you looking at?" that I really wanted to show.

But interestingly enough, I wasn't actually going to draw it like this. I was originally planning to draw a picture of AW 0015-era Jamil in the same style and vein as last year's "Façade II," but when I looked at how I had drawn the face (especially when you look at the eyes and the overall structure of it), I realized that it looked much more like that of a 20-year-old than a 30-year-old, and so I decided to change it to this instead. I think I'm glad I did that, because it just looks so cool this way . . . something that even people not familiar with GX could appreciate for its overall appearance and style without having to know who the character is.

As you could probably guess, I'm extremely satisified with how this looks overall. What really pleases me is how I was actually able to pull off drawing in a decent background right into the picture instead of just taking something and slapping a stock photo behind the drawing. (For anyone who's curious, the blurred area beyond the brick wall is supposed to be a street beyond the alley he's standing in. The round whitish area is supposed to be a streetlight, since this is a nighttime scene. The blurred effect, created with a 5B pencil and a blending stump, was to create the effect of a sandstorm or rainstorm taking place and to give a better reason as to why his hair is blowing around so dramatically.) I'm really proud of how I was able to pull off the pose too, since I'm usually not good at that sort of thing. The hand probably could have been shaded better, but it adds in a feel of candidness rather than a pose that was planned like so many of my other drawings seem to show. The sepia-tone adds to this feel even more, making it look like an old, faded photograph (especially when you look at the faded edges of the drawing and then the white edges of the paper).

I don't know when I'll ever get this fanfic of mine started, but when I do, expect there to be a scene in the flashback that will be perfectly illustrated by this drawing.