“内側” by とんがり @__tongari__ on twitter

The first thing that really grabbed me about this piece is the radiant shine one can see throughout it, and the attracting aura that this painting exudes. This piece was composed by an artist whom I will call “Tongari” for simplicity’s sake, a fan of the Fire Emblem series and well known fan artist. He has a sort of inviting feel to his pieces and representation of playful elegance that I personally really enjoy. For those who wish to check out his works I have linked to various avenues of finding him under the image. As a word of caution he does a fair amount of NSFW images, so if you are not an adult, or do not wish to see such content please keep this in mind.

Jumping in, there is so much going on visually in this image, and yet it’s not difficult to put together a story of what’s happening. Tongari does a fantastic job of bringing together unbelievable amounts of movement and detail into this piece while making it understandable by making our main attraction “Azura” the eye of the storm. Almost like a whirlpool, the torrent of water around her combines light and extremely dark hues of blue to give it a beautiful and yet somehow dangerous feel all at once. Speaking with the artist, he mentioned that partially what he wanted to do, besides work on accentuating the “lower and behind areas of the body,” was make Azura look as if she was dancing on her spear like a pole. The hilarious part about this is that it has the effect, intentional or otherwise to me, of making her look like a mesmerizing vixen. Almost like a siren she pulls you in with dance rather than song in this case, until you find yourself at the end of a spear.

Returning to the central performance of Azura dancing, the rest of the elements in the image really follow her lead. From the sparkle in her eyes to the gesture of her hand, it looks as if she is guiding the water and the surrounding environment to move along with her. This is what I mean by really bringing the various elements in the piece together. Rather than having too many competing spices in the dish, Tongari has really connected the complexity with one central agent, that gives a straightfoward explanation to the rest of the piece. Instead of glancing at this piece and being overwhelmed the viewer knows exactly what is going on.

To bring to attention a few more details, the shine on Azura’s skin, her various adornments and overall appearance really help to guide the eye to various parts of the painting. On thing in particular that I really love is the texturing effect that you can sort of see in whatever brush was used to create the white droplets of water. Towards the bottom corners of the image it almost looks like the water is sticking to the corners of a would-be camera, which further immerses me in this picture. Another detail I enjoy is the color pallet and movement that you can see in the distant sky in the upper left corner. This really adds to the theme of movement, as if the whole world is being pulled into Azura’s dance. Overall, Tongari has done a fantastic job or giving Azura a great balance of playful and seductive. With her performance she inspires and almost invites the viewer to come and dance with her, really immersing you in this piece. I think this piece will continue to serve as an excellent example of involving the audience, and really bringing them into the work, rather than merely observing it.