Tite Kubo’s characters in Bleach have a certain sense of uniqueness that ties them to the author. None of them have any feature that makes them look the same if not on purpose. Due to how individualistic each other the characters are, there can always be certain difficulties that pop up when it comes to drawing them.
Perhaps it is the eyes or those striking hair. It could even be the bankai of characters who got to showcase their powers and strength in the most mesmerizing manner. As such, for an artist with the skill that of Kubo, it takes patience and a lot of motivation to continuously draw these designs time and again. However, it is not just Ichigo Kurosaki that the author found so difficult to draw.
Tite Kubo’s Biggest Battle was Drawing Orihime
In an interview, (via The Bleach Asylum), Tite Kubo talked about all the characters he had to draw since the start of Bleach. One of the most difficult to draw was the protagonist, Ichigo Kurosaki. However, he wasn’t the only one to give the author a problem. In fact, he knew he had to perfect Inoue Orihime’s design no matter what.
Tied with Ichigo, her face is the hardest to draw. She’s going to be a very important character later on so, I want to get used to drawing her faster.
Kubo realized very early on that Orihime had an important part to play in the story. She was a character whose worth was only to grow as the story progressed, so the fact that she had a difficult face to draw was a problem he had to overcome. It was not a choice but only a matter of time.
Her face was something Kubo found the hardest to draw and it took him a lot of time to finish her design every time she needed to be illustrated. His only goal from then on was to master her face so that he could draw her with ease and much more quickly.
Uniqueness is Difficult to Nail
It is not easy to draw the same character again and again, and make sure they look alike every time. No matter how talented an artist may be, it takes a lot of effort to nail the character again and again until it turns into second nature. An artist of such caliber like Tite Kubo too found difficulty in his early days as a mangaka.
Practice makes perfect, motivation gives patience. When Kubo saw a challenge in Orihime’s design, he decided not to make it simpler but to perfect it instead. With a great amount of patience and dedication, he make a master of his art.
Each and every character in his series is unique. Each of them has a different face and different hair. They hold uniqueness by face, by personality, and by their powers. This is exactly why Bleach is amongst the greatest shonen works.
Bleach is available to watch on Hulu.
