Today is the anniversary of when the first game in the Ace Combat series was released. I was working on an another painting that I couldn’t finish yesterday, but I was somehow able to paint this quite quickly as soon as I was done with the other painting. It’s not very refined but it gets the main idea out quite well. I would like to thank the Ace Combat team and community for allowing this series to still be alive and releasing more games which are definitely among my favorite games of all time. My favorites being 5 and Zero. The Berkut is my favorite jet in the game by the way.
Are you a bad enough dude to join the Red Ribbon Army? This has been an idea I’ve had for a couple of months now. Originally I planned on having all the main players of the Red Ribbon Army present in the poster showcasing the different locations one could be stationed at around the world but after drawing out a rough draft I felt it was too busy so I went for a more simplistic one containing Commander Red and Staff Sergeant Black. I figured it would be fun to play around with the idea of the painting done in episode 50 of the anime where Black was shortened and Red was taller and had a more rustic and wise appearance. I then wanted to copy the look of the old War World II recruitment posters. The text in the black box is from the Red Ribbon Army theme song. Line work done with one of my diluted inks and using my Holbein watercolors.
Just to change it up a bit let’s draw a guy this time, and let’s try a new angle (as advised by my younger brother). For this drawing I decided try out a new technique I saw a couple of years ago. This I believe is what they call foreshortening. It worked amazingly well so that I could draw out Luffy’s arm and finger pointing at us. When I finished drawing I then shaded the drawing by using ink and brush. Now Luffy is ready to move forward and become the king of the pirates.
A couple of days ago Airi posted an instagram story of her pretending to drive or should I say race a car while some Eurobeat played in the background. I believe it was Deja Vu but I may be wrong (it was definitely one of the iconic songs). I was actually quite surprised that Airi was aware of Initial D so it was a great surprise. It’s a shame it was a story and wasn’t left permanently on her instagram because I really wanted to see it again.
After watching the video I decided to make a drawing about it. I wasn’t too sure of what car to choose for Airi. At first I was thinking of using one of the cars that appeared on the Buono! music videos but then I figured I should choose a small compact car that was a bit more in the AE-86 class. So a small compact car that fit with the English theme of Buono!… I for some reason like the aesthetic of mini coopers so I ended up going with that. Luckily I had some references of mini coopers in my references collection so I really just had to find some references of Airi and Takumi (as well as his 86 which for some reason I didn’t have many of). I made a lot of mistakes while I was drawing but I cleaned what I could with my Nicker poster color which worked really well. After I was done inking and shading with ink I then used Photoshop to clean up the pencil marks and adjusting the black and white levels. Once I had that going I then used Clip Studio to add in the sound effects that are so iconic of Initial D.
I quite liked the way it came out. Hope you guys enjoy it as well.
I wanted to try working with the more simplistic style again today. For my model I chose Momoko Tsugunaga and while looking for some reference pictures I came upon some where she was cosplaying as Rei Ayanami. Which in turn just turned into Rei Ayanami in the end. I don’t have enough blues in my collection of Copics so I’m a bit bummed that I wasn’t able to do much with her blue hair. Looking at my drawing there are still traces of Momochi which I like. At first I had Rei smiling but decided against it. The end result gives her an expression of noticing the viewer and glancing over.
For today’s drawing/painting I decided to try out some of the inks that I created yesterday. Since I would only be doing the lineart with it and coloring it I went with the lightest ink I have. As for the style I went with LittleThunder‘s style and coloring since it is probably my favorite traditional art style. Today before I had begun today’s drawing I saw her latest art video of her painting one of her drawings. So with that in mind I went with a more simple and flat coloring style only adding some coloring in the skin and hair. I really love the way it came out. Although I have yet to try this coloring style with a background which of course would have a lot of variables that I would have to work with. But that will be for another work and day. I quite like the way the ink interacts with the copic markers.
I really liked the photo I used from Airi‘s instagram. It has a retro 80s-90s look which really fits with this coloring style.
I think I mentioned this before but I have been quite busy lately with my other job and building my desk PC which took me 4 weeks to complete. Had I had a bit more time to work on it I think I could have completed it in two weeks but such is life. Now I have more workspace since I added about 6 inches on the contour of the desk (minus the front side) so that I could clamp my three monitors thus giving me all of my original (about) 4 x 3 feet to use with all of my supplies that I would use as I work. I actually just made the finishing touches yesterday so I wasn’t really even able to use the desk till today. So far I’m really happy with the way it is all set up and because I made the outside contours on the sides so that I could clamp down my monitors I can now fully see all of the screen on both sides as I work on my XP-Pen which I of course left on the center. I’ll show some pics of it and the setup at some other time.
Way back in, whoa, May 28th (it’s been that long after all huh) I uploaded my painting celebrating Buono! To my surprise on June 8th I actually got a like from Natsuyaki Miyabi! Man it feels nice to know that the person you decided to make a painting of has seen your work. But to also get their approval of it is quite nice. I’m really glad my feelings of appreciation for her work has reached her.
Here is the painting just in case you missed it. And here is a link to the original post.
While I was getting some supplies for my desk PC I stopped by a nearby dollar store and came across some small vials with cork caps. I got a set of two of the 6 packs so that I could store some pre mixed inks and watercolors that I could use when working with linework/outlines. For today I made a set of ink that got lighter and lighter for when I want to use different levels of black to gray inks. I have my diluted ink that is still quite dark in my original container and a set of 5 vials containing the newly created ink. I also made a reference sheet to show me the intesity of the ink within each vial and a date of when they were created just in case one of them runs out and I have to create a new batch which of course might not be the same as the previous one. Since it was running a bit late when I was completely done getting my worspace ready I decided to make a quick drawing. Since it was all about testing the desk I of course decided to go traditional (plus I also got to try out my inks, although I only used my base ink for this drawing). I’ll try to see if I could make a quick drawing every weekday for the rest of the summer on top of whatever new paintings I decide to work on. I already have an idea of the first piece I will be working on (hopefully starting tomorrow).
Here is that Goku drawing I did. Maybe I should have made some lines to express movement but overall I’m quite pleased with the results (was a bit scared that I wouldn’t be able to draw as I liked since I hadn’t done it in about 4 weeks).
Man, this one is already about a year old now. I was planning on releasing it at some point but it never happened and ultimately I decided to release it when it got hot out again. And seeing as the weather has been getting hot lately (plus I haven’t uploaded in a while) I figure now would be a good time to upload it. The painting of Momoko is the same that was done a year ago but wasn’t pleased with the background so I tried out my new pc upgrades with this piece by painting a new beach background. There is no more stuttering or slowing down anymore (although the temps of the CPU are a bit worrisome). I tried out some of the other brushes that Corel Painter offers and saw no problems at all. Last time I tried it with my old components my pc couldn’t keep up. Although it could handle my favorite oil brush it tended to close up (Corel) on me from time to time. The last time when I was painting the Buono piece I lost half an hour’s worth of work which really sucked. I was going to wait on upgrading for a bit longer but after that happened I decided to pull the trigger. And I’m very happy I did.
I really like Momochii’s Yurushite Nyan pose so I went with that when I first drew her. My thought process at the time was to try out 80s/90s style painting which can look extremely beautiful if done right. But as mentioned when I was looking at the old background it just wasn’t up to par so I made a new one that would fit Momoko.
I’m planning on making more paintings throughout the summer ( I actually have had some ideas floating around for a while now). But work and my decision to make a desk computer will be keeping me busy for a bit longer. Hopefully the extra space in the desk will help cool down my cpu and gpu if not I’m going to have to invest in a new cooler…
It has also been a while since I’ve done some traditional watercolor paintings so I hope to get back into that as well.
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