Hunting the Elusive

Riv is a Taiwanese artist who has made inroads into Japan, with stuff appearing in TechGian and doing things for Alcot and such, though like many other foreign artists, one can never be all that sure how much of his (assuming male status for writing purposes) doujin stuff actually makes it to Japan. That said, we should be pretty happy with what we have, and Hanakotoba is, I think, a great introduction to this artist. Please note that this post may be mildly NSFW, so be in a safe location before jumping in. [Release][PNG]

In our first overall analysis, Riv is in the stylistic class of artists like Carnelian, with the use of large, luminescent, deep eyes and a preference for characters with more mature looks, both in terms of facial arrangement and shape, and body structure.

From the cover of the picture, it is already apparent that Riv is not an artist who will shirk from fan service, though the interior of the book is actually a bit more restrained.

Note the smoke outlines and some other parts of the cover which appear black in the scan are actually embossed silver foil.

The subtitle of Hanakotoba is “Ribbon 2 – Wahoo Style –“, which I take to be a weird romanisation of “Wafu”, so Japanese style clothing would be the dominant theme. I think, already, from these two very striking images seen above, we see Riv’s great attention to details, subtle patterns and structures, which all together give his pictures a very layered look, but never actually becoming so busy as to detract from the main subjects.

Another thing to note is Riv’s use of colours, which are bright, vibrant with polished and precise gradients. In the last point, I’m sure they share similarities with game CG styles and production techniques. But another thing which struck me was how similar, colour-wise, Riv’s work is with earlier stuff by Capura L., another Taiwanese artist. Note that Capura has since moved into more pastelly palettes, and somewhat more subtle colours.

If I were to use a single word to describe Riv’s art in Hanakotoba, especially the page spreads, it would be “gorgeous”. Simply put, on any page, Riv’s work will pop out at you.

The only failures in Hanakotoba would be the inclusion of some of these single page artworks. The one on the left, for example, is stylistically less polished than what we have been presented with prior to this. From what I gather reading the end notes, this was an earlier work.

Happily (or unhappily, depending on your stance), the rough illustrations in this book are all collected on the very back page, after the Atogatari.

A growing collection of non-Japanese artists are getting work and recognition in Japan, and among them, Riv is a rising star, or should be, from what I see of his art. While arguable, Hanakotoba only has four epic page-spreads, I think it has been more than enough to gauge the quality of work being produced by Riv, and I expect pretty great stuff into the future.