I guess since high school I have been doing an art piece especifically for new years. Usually I start it the day before and finish it on the first day of new years. This year though I made 2 before new years (one of them was El Chavo, and the other one I will show below) and the Eri Sawachika one for new years. I’ve been quite busy lately but when it comes to just drawing and not painting the workflow is not that bad and I can move relatively quickly.

This was one of the other pieces I did before new years. Again I was inspired by that video I showed on the last post. It was also done quickly so I made a lot of mistakes, but the biggest is the proportions… especially the “bobblehead”. But I figured I would try and fix it digitally using some techniques I saw online.

Character is Harima Kenji from School Rumble.

I used this reference, but decided to change things up a bit, for some reason had an image of him in a Kung Fu like scenario (like Bruce Lee). Decided to take off his glasses just as an extra challenge.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/24639023747/in/dateposted-public/

Bobblehead Harima… I guess I was so focused on the pens that I didn’t think of the proportions especially since I imagined his whole body from the get go and I ran out of space below.:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/24639000007/in/dateposted-public/

And here he is with an edited head:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/24639002027/in/dateposted-public/

Posture still seems a bit off. But it was just a test anyway so it should be fine as it is for now.

And so having shown both of the pre new years pieces, let’s now focus on the piece I made for and on new years. Again I chose someone from School Rumble. I wanted to do something simple and just modify it for new years (plus I wanted to learn a thing or two from a pro). With that in mind I decided to recreate this scene:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39477590652/in/dateposted-public/

Here is the quick draft (as to be expected it is quite faster to just draw it one time instead of the two times that I usually do, rought draft then a clean final version):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/38799615714/in/dateposted-public/

By this point I finally figure out that there was no way I could just copy everything over (so much for just doing a simple piece…) New years in these parts of the world are winter after all, so I had to dress her up appropriately. After a quick search online for winter clothes I came upon this reference picture:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/38612206075/in/dateposted-public/

So I decide to use that sweater and that design:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39477594802/in/dateposted-public/

Should’ve stopped by this point and made the rest digitally, but since I wasn’t sure of how I was going to go about it I continued on:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39477594492/in/dateposted-public/

… I didn’t even do any clean designs, I just made some quick lines with no real ideas on the type of knitting. It doesn’t look horrible but I should try harder.

Here it is with the filled out dark parts:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/38612203505/in/dateposted-public/

So I got to this point by the end of new years but it was quite late so I had to call it a day.

Time was running low already so at this point I finally decided to mix it up with digital techniques. But for that I had to search up screentones and textures that I had to use. That took a while. On top of that I decided to clean up my messy texture lines so that it would be ready for the knit textures.

Here are the textures and screentones I used:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39477592442/in/dateposted-public/

Then I had to take out the color and change the contrast:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39477592872/in/dateposted-public/

This is the screentone I used to darken areas up:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/38799647334/in/dateposted-public/

Since it’s new years, of course I needed some fireworks:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/24640047977/in/dateposted-public/

That looked a bit lonely though so I decided to add a cityscape:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39507959611/in/dateposted-public/

I couldve modified the darkness of the fireworks screentone with the cityscape’s lighter sky but that would take too much time, so I decided against it.

This is the final piece, clean and simple (though quite time comsuming due to finding and modifying the screentones, and cleaning up the rough knit lines I made).

After making the piece smaller and a .jpg it made the cityscape screentone quite choppy.

Aside from the obvious changes I made, I also changed her expression. I wanted her to be contemplative and yet have some hope for the future, thus the small smile.

Anyway, this year has finally started so lets do our best to make our goals successful.

Happy New Year.

And as always

Hasta la proxima,

-Nube