音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

@pixiv

Recently, I’m addicted to the song “VII” by Akiko Shikata (志方あきこ). I think, Ar Tonelico III Hymmnos Concerts brought me back to Akiko after a long while without listening to her. Why “VII”? I can’t tell. I loved this song at the first time I tried it. I especially like its introduction. This is a darkish song; in the introduction, the chime and music box made a nice effect. Then, strings slid in with an intense baroque-ish style. Akiko sang in that song with a rather higher pitch, which also gave the song a very grotesque ambience (actually, it’s not such a grotesque song at all xD).

However, after times’ looping of it, I printed its lyrics and decided that this song is in my song-cover-list. I’ve tried to sing it for many times, and thus it didn’t take me too much of time to practice it before I recorded my first sample. Although there were still many parts I needed to practice more, my first sample was not that bad (yet I didn’t save the sample; I was off-key in the middle part >_< ).

Later, suddenly, that idea spurted in my mind: why not draw an image for this song? This song is so full with darkish-elements. A girl in gothic styled would fit well definitely!

Thus I started to think about it and try to draw a draft. Sincerely, I didn’t have any other thought about what it would be like. I didn’t know what kind of drawing it would be. Just, I read in its lyrics, something about mirror, okay, I’ll set up a mirror in it. Thus, it’s normal to make the character to be in front of the mirror, or maybe also to touch the mirror. A mirror would look nice if it’s in a dark room. Also, Seven Sisters of Purgatory were mentioned … (it’s a song for Umineko!!! I just realized it, and I just realized that this song should be read as “seven.” Before I read it as “V two,” orz) the whole scene would be a conversation between the character and the seven sisters. But it’s almost impossible to draw the seven sisters (lol), so I decided to put seven shining dots around her.

So far, I made up the basic things in this drawing. After it, everything was easier. Little by little, I finished the drawing of the character. Oh, yes, since the lyrics saying a girl with black hair, I chose to draw Tohne, a girl with long and black hair in my own to-be-started fiction, for this drawing (gosh, I need to find a time to start my fiction, or it won’t be started forever!).

For the background setting, firstly, I wanted to put the mirror vertically (normally), but I changed my mind since I’ve noticed this mirror image I got via google image would be look nicer if I get it floating in the air! And, about the room setting, I thought a chess-board-styled room was the best, though I DID drop watching the anime Umineko… and the seven shining dots, I tilted them to make the drawing looking more balanced.

I just don’t know if my image fits your image of the song “VII,” but… who cares?

Edit:
It’s 15:44, I also finished recording the song finally. I don’t have much to say about my cover, just, I’m so glad that Akiko kept the chorus in the instrumental version, or this song is impossible to me. I also recorded the speaking Italian of the song, and Akiko’s laughing made me nervous… x_x