Month: December 2015

Star Wars art piece update II

On By Nube ObscuraIn Artist Project, UpdateLeave a comment

Alright, here is an update on what I have so far for this new piece I am currently working on. Christmas has now passed and some visiting relatives will be leaving soon, so I can work more without much distractions and family duties.

With that said, I would say I take the longest time to come up with an idea, and fleshing it out as a rough draft. This time I had a hard time deciding what the location would be for this drawing. Since I have made Darth Vader look more German, I decided to make Luke look like a someone from the Allies from World War II. Of course since this is all me taking liberties with the original designs, I decided to have fun with it and decided to make Luke look more like a yanki with some combat boots (inspired by the Allied soldiers). As I was finishing the drawing itself I thought, “Wait, Luke is part of the rebel alliance and yankis are rebels against society. Now it fits even better.” Aside from my personal touches they are both still Japanese influenced, this works to connect it to the original work and to give them some connection as father and son.

Now as for the location, I wanted them to be fighting on a cliff with the ocean as the background, but I also toyed with the idea of having them fighting inside a ship as if they were fighting inside the deathstar. In the end though I felt it would be better if I went with my original idea. But I did decide to add some more battles going on around them. I was a bit scared to add more things to draw because I would then have to make them fit with the whole drawing as a whole, and then there is the whole having to color them later. But I decided to to go for it anyway. It will take a bit of time and some major concentration, but if I break it down into parts I should be okay.

I wanted to use a new technique using color pastels. I am using some really cheap one’s I bought when I was in either middle school or high school, can’t even remember. They are really not that good, but I only needed them as a base that I will use to layer on top of. Don’t know if I will succeed or not. But I do feel confident I will be okay. We’ll see.

Anyway here is what I have so far. Colors are still really rough, but I will refine little by little tomorrow. Will explain the process next time (hopefully it works).

Luke vs Vader I nu resizeLuke vs Vader II nu resizeLuke vs Vader III nu resizeLuke vs Vader IV nu resizeLuke vs Vader V nu resize

Levi Ackerman Youtube video

On By Nube ObscuraIn Artist Project, Update, Youtube VideosLeave a comment

I have finally finished the Levi Ackerman video, and has been uploaded.

In this episode I will tackle Levi Ackerman from Attack on Titan.
As per request I used only color pencils for this drawing. I’m guessing that judging from her age she can only afford to invest on the basic art utensils. For that reason I made sure to use only Crayola color pencils (except for my black PrismaColor color pencil which works much better than the crayola, it can be bought on it’s own in a hobby shop).

Crayola pencils used: white, peach, light brown, silver, green blue, turquoise, tan, dark brown, blue, taupe, pink, brown, slate
(if using crayola, make sure to get a 36 colors box so that the transitions in colors can be done much smoother.

Overall the difference between professional color pencils and the mass market one’s are quite apparent. Crayola color pencils take quite a bit of time to blend together since the pigment doesn’t do more than three layers easily. And even then, the layers have to be placed in light coats first than applied on thicker coats little by little. I really like using a white color pencil to blend light colors together to give them a smooth transition from one color to the other and to go from color to white.

The best thing to keep in mind is that color pencils can be layered on top of one another. As for making outlines for the drawing before coloring. One can outline it with pens, but be prepared to keep the colors simple so that they don’t look bad and out of place and/or changing the thickness of the outlines throughout the drawing to make it blend well. I obviously did not do this. Instead I used only my mechanical pencil and darkened it once I had the rough lines drawn. From there I can start coloring and choose areas that I wish to lighten. I do this by applying color pencils over the lines. But be aware of how the color pencils can smear the graphite from the pencils.

This is just a speed drawing video, a slower (and longer) video will be uploaded soon.

 

Here are the links –

speed drawing version: 

EXTENDED version: 

And the drawing itself:

Levi Ackerman V Final II

 

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.

Ashita Mañana
-XERO

I’m finally free for the winter!

On By Nube ObscuraIn Artist Project, UpdateLeave a comment

Finals are finally done, so I can start having more time to focus on my artwork again full time.

Of course, despite not posting things here, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working on work behind the scenes. I have made some progress on the cosplay. here are the boots for Camus.

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Now, as for the second armor, here it is. This time it is Gemini’s armor.

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All that is left to finish is the shoulder plate (which is a bit tough) and the arms.

Aside from this, I got a new request for my youtube channel. This time I have to draw Levi Ackerman from Attack on Titan. Here is the rough draft of what I will be working with. It was requested that I use color pencils. It seems like the requester doesn’t have the funds to afford the more pricey art supplies, so I will be using my crayola brand color pencils. This will give a  good indication of how much I have improved since the last artworks.

Here it is.

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Well, I’m off to work. And since I have more time, I will try to post things more frequently.