#lost word

the time has come to analyze and critique the Lost Word art for Sannyo Komakusa.

[This also gives me an excuse to show select angles from Lotus Eaters, her Alphes style art by Dairi, stuff like that ]

Love it or hate it, the Touhou lost word gacha game could potentially be someone's first introduction to a given touhou character, so it's important that character portraits leave a good first impression. So with that in mind, I'm gonna critique their art for the booker Touhou cutie that, honestly, just from her profession alone she deserves their utmost respect.

(I can only hope she pokes fun at gacha within a gacha game in the same way she pokes fun at gamblers within her gambling den)

I'm gonna be zooming in to each part of the outfit to discuss the benefits and downsides of each design choice. I'm gonna be comparing pieces to the Zun art or Lotus Eaters for references and also generally to showcase things for comparison.

Since it surrounds the whole design I think I'll need to mention the smoke dragon and pipe first. On the whole, it's cool, and her pipe does match her zun art. Unfortunately it covers up a lot of her outfit and pose. And lastly regarding this there is definitely one detail that's remarkably annoying.

The smoke isn't coming from the pipe.

Its just coming from around her feet

but you will notice an important detail while looking her feet

she's got painted toenails like in Lotus Eaters.

Next, I will move up to her skirt

All in all, it's a pretty good version of her skirt, it has a crease on the side thats catching a little too much light though. it's got the pretty pattern she has in her zun art, but they lowered her coat so it's all an even line of pattern. It even ends up lining up with her sleeve for some reason. It's pretty, but I think it makes the transition from her skirt to her top look a little more drastic, since there isn't a fresh line of coat pattern to break it up. Frankly, it just looks really cool as a long or mid length jacket like in Lotus Eaters and the Zun art instead of a big skirt length coat like they did.

(Yes, I realize Lotus Eaters doesn't feature color or her intricate coat pattern, [presumably since it'd be a nightmare to keep track of. Though I like to imagine it's just yet another outfit of hers]

but anyway, it at least demonstrates my point about a coat with a different length then her skirt creating a cool contrast.

Next is the chest, first I must say her buttons and clothes look perfectly fine. Though they generally pin to the side in Lotus Eaters as well as in her Alphes style art by Dairi (Though these buttons do look like they are struggling)

There are many different different ways people draw Sannyo's chest, but eventually they can be categorized a bit, because at some point there is a tempting result to what the size can make you want to do with her outfit

Naturally, if someone wants to draw her breasts in a larger size, like in Lost Word, it makes it more difficult to draw her coat over her shoulders. The reason being that when you get into the much larger anime sizes, the cloth from a coat would start to just drape over the lower sections of her body from her breasts. So I think people try to avoid that in different ways, often she often ends up with her coat lowered and hanging loosely above her elbows, which can actually serve a double purpose and give her a ton of personality.

As an example here is some gorgeous art by "syuri22" I found here

Syuri22 even extended the line of her skirt up into a bow to make her breasts pop out a bit more, which was really clever.

sometimes fan artists part her coat around her breasts which is a clever way to have her coat over her shoulders without hanging over her breasts too, sometimes she tucks the coat under with her arms in a pose. Sometimes they have it drape a bit but ultimately return to her waist. My point is there are a lot of creative ways artist do it. To lostword's credit the way they did it does kinda accentuate her smug energy. Though adding it together with how thick and soft they made the hem of her coat does kinda make it look like she has a comfortable blanket draped over her.

As for her face. It's good, of course. I mean it's Sannyo's face, hard to go wrong with that. It's got her cute bow. She's got a good expression mixing cute and smug energy. Her ponytail is looking good. No complaints there.

looking at the art as a whole, it's fine. Sure, it looks more like she's wearing a blanket than a coat, but I guess it does make her look kinda soft and huggable. Oh, and I completely forgot to mention her fan is freaking massive. But She's ultimately got the right energy. Though I honestly think it would be better if she had her coat line up a bit less. The way her sleeves and coat and skirt all make an even arc along the design sound like a interesting idea, but it kinda makes her design have less interesting stuff going on.

I do prefer her Alphes style art by Dairi by quite a bit tbh

Even still i hope some day they do her winter outfit, I'm curious what that would look like. it's actually got the fuzzy energy they were going for.

Let's continue where i was left off on Deviantart

2hu Bizarre Adventure Part 5 Episode 34