For a comparison of how Takahashi-sensei draws a real person as compared
to how they actually look, pick up The Ranma Memorial book and Rumic
World Trilogy vol 3.

Comparing the Rumiko in "That Darn Cat" against the photographs in the
interview, I'm struck by the honesty of the drawing.  She's a short
middle-aged woman with a crooked mouth in both.

What's interesting are the features that do get cartooned.  Rumiko's own
fingers are short, but in the cartoon they're drawn as little spikes.
She draws her eyes larger and rounder than they actually are, but not
anywhere near as big as her usual style. (Compare A-ko and B-ko in this
strip).

Her glasses are drawn much larger than they really are.  In real life
her eyes are 80% of the width of her glasses.  In the drawing, her eyes
only stretch halfway across the lenses.

Most interesting is her drawn hairstyle which is much smoother than
real-life (especially in front) and looks very Nabiki-ish.  (Is Nabiki
Rumiko's dark side?)

She emphases her shortness by drawing herself as seen from a higher
vantage point looking down and by placing objects (such as light
switches) very high in comparison to her own body.

She does "idealise" herself in a few respects.  The cartoon Rumiko has
straighter teeth and lacks eyebrows and the creases between her cheeks
and mouth, and has a wider mouth.

She does use her own manga-shorthand in several places. Compare the last
panel of page 29 in "That Darn Cat" to her standard "wide handed"
surprise poise, or her fanged face on page 31 to Lum's or the
straight-tooth anger on the last page to Ataru being determined.

Lastly, as usual, she mixes detailed background, blank background and
"emotion-wave" background at will.  For example, she uses a detailed
background to set the scene of her editor's visit, blank backgrounds as
she builds the setup, "emotion waves" to show Min's determination then a
blank background as he goes tonk.

A good example of this is Ranma and Akane's second bathroom encounter.
Detail work as Ranma goes down the stairs, minimal background as Ranma
flashes back to Akane being friendly, detailed background as the door
opens between the two girls, blank background behind Ranma, anger flux
behind Akane then POW!

What does this have to do with fanfics?  Well, as this is the RT.fanfic
list, we can write stories using any of her characters...

	Henry J. Cobb	hcobb@slip.net          http://www.io.com/~hcobb