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Finally finished this pic! I might be in a new stage of life, but the artwork continues.

Self Critique: I'm not sure if I'm really digging the thickness of the thighs. Might just be too long.

Last time I did any fanart related to Urusei Yatsura was back in 2018. That's when I drew Ataru's mom, which is still funny in hindsight that I'd draw her first before drawing Lum, the more obvious choice for anyone doing any UY artwork. But six years later, I finally draw the star of the show. The choice to finally draw her came about when Artzie Music was still around, with Lum being the unofficial poster girl for the future funk channel. That's also when I started reading the manga (which I'm currently up to vol. 13).

While this pic was three years in the making since the initial concept sketch, there were some challenges before I even put pencil to paper, particularly with the hair. And this was all before the Urusei Yatsura reboot was even announced. Before the reboot kinda solidified this nice middle-ground between green and iridescent hair, Lum was only known for having two types of hair: Iridescent (manga) or green (anime). It's the green hair that she's most known for, so the inkling was there to depict her with green hair. But then when I tried out the iridescent hair, it was actually really nice looking and rather satisfying to see the end result. Not to mention iridescent version is rarely seen in fanart. In the end I decided on doing both types of hair, with the green hair acting as the base for shading, then shifting the colors of the shading for the iridescent hair. You might also notice I drew her with shorts (at least as one of the variants). This is mainly because I based it on how she was depicted in the early chapters of the manga, which was all that was available at the time and were the only references I had. Down the line though, I quickly drew up a panties variant that's more in line with her modern depiction.

Moving to the background, I did something that I've starting doing to some pics I've been working on: making the canvas longer. This is something that I got advice about from comic book artist David Abrevaya after I showed him my artwork at the 2022 Big Apple Comic Con. In particular, said to make my pics 11”x17”. Normally my pics err closer to 11”x14” and 8.5”x11”, with subjects kinda filling in the areas on the left and right. Some pics actually benefited from the extension of the canvas, and others not so much. With this pic, I wanted to show the height of where Lum is. The old dimensions, the angle that I was drawing her in, and the visibility of those faraway buildings, made her (and the lamppost) look a little too low to the ground. I'm still not sure I like all the empty space under her, but it did a least give me more room to show off the buildings.

Let's actually talk about that now. I actually got inspired to do this pic from a video I saw on Youtube that had “Killer Tune Kills Me” from Kirinji playing while someone drove across several highways in Japan. Unfortunately the video was taken down, but I grabbed many screenshots to use as references before it was taken down. Someone did re-upload it to BiliBili though, so you can see the video for yourself (close the pop-up to resume the video if it shows up). The filter I applied at the end kinda muted out the sky's saturation, but I didn't want to crowd the scene with too many buildings and block out the sunset. The sunset you see around the 6:15 mark of the video is the scene I wanted to replicate with this pic as it's not often I get to draw a sunset. But like I said earlier, the filter I applied muted the colors a bit. This was mainly the result of me doubting another filter I had that made everything a bit too blue and kinda inaccurate for where Lum was situated.

TTools And Resources

Done on Clip Studio Paint 2.0

Wacom 16 Tablet used

Artwork cloaked with Glaze for AI Protection

Body-chan model traced for construction lines.

Video featuring Kirinji's “Killer Tune Kills Me” referenced for background.

Lum, Urusei Yatsura © Rumiko Takahashi

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