Xenogears_Rue Cohen's character portrait

I had fun trying to give character portraits to certain NPCs from the game... imitating Tanaka's style.

It's quite an exercise in itself as I never thought drawing manga characters was my forte, despite my art teachers telling me that my personal style was too "manga-like".
Seriously ?
Well, if it is, it's not intentional. I actually feel like I have to force myself if I want to draw "manga style" correctly (it's still pretty fun but I do have to train to adapt myself to a different style... it's the same when I try to draw like Glen Keane, Burton, Amano and some other artists I like *I try to mimick other artists' style sometimes, it's a pretty interesting exercise I think... doesn't mean I will pick elements from those styles to integrate them in mine... but it can happen*).

I may be a BIT influenced by manga (Hiromu Arakawa?) but I never think much about my influences in general (which is a pain when people ask me "what are your influences ?". It's difficult for me to give a full answer to this most of the time *I remember having some awkward moments at my previous art school lol*). I still remember that my first big inspiration was illustrator Philip Munch. His style was detailed and realistic and while it's been a while since I looked at his drawings, I think his influence never died for me (I still like realism). I just like drawing in a simplier way now...

ANYWAY, this portrait is for Rue's character, the bossy woman in Kislev who tries to get Fei into the Battling tournament (for reasons that I will not explain in details here, I could see her as a minor antagonist in Disk2 when half of the party has to go back to Kislev to get the battleship).