Thanks guys! So glad you like these.
I'm very happy with the entire production of the [Kabuki: Reflections - Volume 1 hardcover].
With the sketches, it was a great kind of fun in spontaneous sketching. I'd stumble onto a sketch that I liked, and then I'd do more trying to perfect that sketch with the brush & ink.
Say, if it was a woman in kimono from the side, I'd try to make each next sketch a little more elegant or economized in brush stroke...trying to improve it...until I did something that essentially changed it, and then I'd continue sketch by sketch trying to develop that look...which would evolve into yet something else. Some would get bigger, some smaller.
Some full body, some bust, some face.
I recommend it as a drawing excercise... drawing 500 sketches in a row... to see how your drawing evolves.
It reminds me of a Zen practice (mentioned by Kabuki as a child) of drawing the the same idea 1000 times with brush & ink.