"Corner Storage" by Tail Flower

This picture is different from my previous posts because it's not a piece of photography, but a drawing. I was browsing pictures online and this one caught my eye instantly. It's called "Corner Storage" drawn by the user "Tail Flower" (Full name not given) on Pixiv, a Japanese/Asian photo source similar to Flickr. You might be wondering, why is the title "Corner Storage"? Although there is a possibility of a translation error, my guess is "corner" is referring to a street corner. I have no clue what to make of "storage" though.

This drawing is in the style of manga/realism. Manga/anime is a very popular style that originated in Japan and has been the inspiration for many styles of art all over the world. For example, the movie The Matrix was inspired by Japanese manga action scenes.

What I love about this drawing is that it shows the suburban side of Japan that not many pictures show. It gives off the feeling of a normal, innocent afternoon where two students are coming home from school or a day in the city. I love how the angle of the piece and the color choices of gray really help make the orange afternoon sky pop and stand out. You can tell by the style of the artwork and how close it looks realistically that the artist took his/her time with every detail and every shade. Instead of everything looking flat and dull as well as 2-D, the coloring, outlining, shading and highlighting done make the picture look less cartoon-ish. What's great is that all his/her artworks take that style of careful shading and highlighting to look relatively realistic. Browsing through his photos, he mainly focuses on anime/manga looking characters and landscapes. The way he/she colors is a soft, watercolor-esque look that a lot of manga/anime artists use.