noda-sensei's art peculiarities
(links are carefully selected example images from golden kamuy)
incredibly skilled with the human form; even difficult poses are rendered perfectly. (does he make everyone naked just to show off?)
babies are Not cute. they're ugly with puffy eyes and always look sleepy and disgusted.
clearly hates drawing teeth and the inside of mouths. notably just leaves the inside of mouths white most of the time. sometimes draws rough teeth, sometimes draws detailed teeth, sometimes implies teeth with shading, sometimes fills it in grey— it's not consistent at all. i think i've deduced that what he hates the most is calculating the position of teeth in the mouth.
despite the above point, he seems to always draw sofia's teeth because her tooth gap is an important part of her character design
sometimes zooms in and draws details (especially on hands) then zooms out and you can tell because now the line weight is a little different
3/4 view from behind (1/4 view?) of people's faces where you just see the funny bumps of their lips. and it always works
big round sweat drips that often have Texture and Shading.
incredibly skilled at drawing animals, even notoriously difficult ones like horses. though most of the animals die. especially horses.
amount of sparkle in the eyes is meaningful. more sparkle indicates the lightness of their spirit, and no sparkle indicates coldness or jadedness. best/worst example is reinvigorated tsukishima. asirpa is of course also a critical example. and i think ogata's eyes never have any sparkle his whole life.
he can draw wrinkles in the places where they would normally go on someone's face, and he can do it well. or he can decide to draw Other lines on someone's face, in any spot, and if someone questions it, the answer is that they're just like that, and you have to accept it. i really like this "they're just like that" approach to character design, and there are many examples in golden kamuy (e.g. ariko's square irises and pupils, ushiyama's forehead plate, tsukishima's nose)
really good at drawing the way strands of hair wrap over the top of someone's head. (look at tsurumi, ogata, hijikata)
he'll draw chapped lips that'll make your own lips feel real dry.
mouths are often shaped like that... but it works
eyes are usually black, but sometimes a character's pupils will get really small during moments of high tension and you can see their iris and it's light
this is just a hunch but i think he prefers drawing men over women
judicious use of lines going up from the corners of the mouth
he's not a coward: if a character's chest is exposed and the angle is right, he will draw that character's nipples, and that is right and just. he will apply the same principle to draw a character's butthole, which i don't have such a strong opinion about.
there are lots of men with very close-cut hair (bc it's the military) and that's not distinctive, so he gets creative with the hairlines. i think this is an underrated aspect of character design.
careful use of line weight on the corners of closed mouths has a powerful effect (of cuteness?) (look out for this next time you read the manga. it's everywhere and it's the best.)
consistently skillful use of ink splatter effects for blood; similar splattery effects used for snow
eyebrows and other facial hair are usually drawn as multiple long, thin lines together, and for an eyebrow with emotion, you put a couple of perpendicular lines at one end or both
strands of blood or hair extend and curl around in unrealistic ways for dramatic effect. this effect is omnipresent.
occasional really, really choice faces that were obviously drawn either from photo reference or while looking in a mirror
character design by actually giving everyone different facial features, as opposed to character design by assigning different hair and accessories to uniformly pretty people. the latter is much easier, but he chose the thorny path of his own will! thank you for setting a strong example, noda-sensei!
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