Obscurus AnimeXCartoon

It’s been snowing and raining where I live this week. I really love the rain, which is why I decided to make a piece with that as the theme. It’s been a while since I last drew Obscurus Nube so wanted to draw him again. This time I wanted to try a simple AnimeXCartoon style like Sh1tty ‘s. I think if I push it a bit more to the anime style it will look more like the 80s anime style which was more round and soft. By making the darker shades with hatching I can just use one color base and it will still look good. I now know I can emulate real life. There are somethings I still have to learn and master but I think doing stylized artwork will make my art standout more and will be better over all.

Drawn, inked with my G-pen, colored with my COPICs and then made the background with Photoshop.

This is Obscurus from my story “Between Light and Darkness”:

References:

Traditional process:

Digital process:

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

May 1, 2019 0

Susuki Airi Red Hat

I’ve been wanting to make an all ink drawing for a while now. This time I chose to draw Airi Suzuki. It’s a shame I got into ℃-ute (and Berryz Koubou) a little late to the party. I listened to a couple of their songs back in the day but never really delved into all their projects. On the plus side I have plenty of new material that will be new to me. I’m really glad Airi decided to continue singing after ℃-ute retired. I wont lie out of all the ℃-ute members Airi captured my attention the most (although everyone is winning me over when I started checking their songs and videos out, but I still think Airi is my favorite).

One artist that gave me the final push to finally draw this piece is ungrochika an artist that focuses on making art with ink. Her art is quite beautiful do check it out.

here is her twitter

and her instagram

Not only is she an artist but she is also a DJ (and to top it off she is extremely cute too), do check her out.

Here is the final piece:

reference used (and a piece by ungrochika that guided me a bit). I don’t know where the photo of Airi is from, if you know do let me know.:

and the process:

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

March 12, 2019 0

1st Krita drawing Sayu

I was looking into Clip Studio after I saw a video showcasing the ability to have the program auto color one’s line art. And what made it cool was that not only did it seem to work great but one can have a say on the colors used as well. I couldn’t try it out since the trial version doesn’t make it accessible. But there is a website that does the same thing named PaintsChainer so I played around with that for a bit. While I was reading more about Clip Studio I happened to hear about another program that was open source and free named Krita. I have heard of this program before (quite a while ago) but never gave it a chance. So I decided to finally give it a chance. I’m amazed at the amount of tools and options it has. It really does seem to offer (at least from what I have tried so far) everything most pro programs offer.

One other reason I was interested in using Krita is because Photoshop seems to make my tablet drivers quite after working on it for a while, and the only way to make them work again is to restart my pc. What sucks is that sometimes I only make a couple of strokes and the drivers quit on me. This makes working digitally really annoying, time consuming and messes with my work rhythm. Now to be fair I did have too many open tabs on chrome so I’m sure that was causing my pc to use too much memory causing problems.

In any case I’m glad this all culminated in me trying out this program because it’s quite amazing. It has many pen options and works quite well. Most things work like in any other painting program so making the change isn’t hard. I really like the g-pen to draw. One thing I’ve never tried was using the pen pressure to dictate the opacity. I’ts actually quite amazing and intuitive. I think I might prefer using the pen pressure in this way instead of controlling the size of the brush while painting. It gives me a feel that reminds me of how watercolor works.

I’m still not used to the way to color selector works, I prefer the one from Corel and Photoshop (the Coolorus addon one).

As for the drawing it self I wasn’t too sure what to draw so I just began doodling until at some point I decided to draw Sayu. This time though I just wanted to see what would come up if I just did things from memory and imagination. After doing the line art I decided to try out painting with the program and am quite surprised and pleased at how great it feels and works. I highly recommend it specially since it’s free. I’ll see how far I can push the program in some future works. Hopefully my tablet drivers will finally stop crashing as well so I can just draw and paint at my pace without disturbances.

The 1st drawing/painting:

The process:

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

March 8, 2019 0

VF-1A Hikaru Veritek

This one took a while. Made with Sharpie fine tip marker and painted with my Kuretake Gansai Tambi and Nicker Poster Color. I could push things a bit further but I want to work on something else after I rest this weekend. I had a vague idea of how I would end up painting this piece but I just went with the flow.

I had to fix it digitally with Photoshop where there was an unpainted area left behind from the tape I used to keep the paper in place. Sorry a bit tired so I will leave things as they are.

Finished piece:

References used:

Process:

Digital process:

That’s it for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

March 2, 2019 0

Riku KHII Bust

Whenever I have time I have been playing through the Kingdom Hearts series before I go ahead and play Kingdom Hearts III. So far I have finished the original, saw the 358/2 days scenes, I started playing Chain of memories but it was quite straining so I went ahead and saw the scenes on youtube. Anyway I finished Kingdom Hearts II about two weeks ago. And I gotta say, the design for Riku in Kingdom Hearts II was definitely the best version so far. I’ve seen his design in Kingdom Hearts III and so far KHII is still the best. Both with the cloak and the his normal clothes.

As a side note, after finishing Kingdom Hearts II I decided to go back to Chain of Memories and slug through it. I really don’t like quitting. I’m almost done with Sora’s section then there should be a short section where I play as Riku.

Here is the finished piece done with my G pen and my Copics:

I made a quick background with Photoshop and Corel Painter:

References used:

Process:

Digital background process:

That should be all for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

February 21, 2019 0

Hikaru Matsuyama true player

What I like about Matsuyama is that he truly is the counter character to Hyuga. While Hyuga started as a force all on his own, Matsuyama was a complete team player. On top of that they influenced each other quite a bit as the story progressed which allowed Hyuga to build up his team play and for Matsuyama to develop his individual play (which allowed him to go against ace players). But despite this, it’s obvious that Matsuyama just doesn’t have the heart to be cold blooded enough to win at any cost. I really liked the way he had to remind himself to be a bit rougher and not worry about Tsubasa’s injuries in the middle school arc. Yet despite this he still put his own body in the line so that Tsubasa wouldn’t injure his shoulder further. Truly a man among man.

I tried to start tapering off the details as I went further back with the background but I feel it would have been much easier doing it with water colors. I want to make a piece where I combine both. Copics are cool but one is limited by the colors one owns, and they are freakin expensive. … I wonder if I should have added a bit more color to the crowd, but I also didn’t want to add too much detail as well as muddy it up. I did learn a good bit after this piece so I will try it out on the next one.

Of course this piece is based on one of the most recent episodes:

References used:

The process:

They will finally cover Hyuga vs Tsubasa in the coming episodes. Can’t wait!

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

This if for those of you who read these posts, I was actually working on a new piece for the day after Valentines day but some things happened and I had no choice but to postpone it. Here is a preview (will release it next year, probably):

February 19, 2019 0

Happy Valentines Day 2019

Welp today was Valentines day so since I want to participate in the seasons holidays a bit more so that the years don’t feel so monotonous I of course made a drawing for today. I’ve been wanting to do a purely pen drawing this time. I also wanted to try out siiteiebahiro ‘s style for a while now. So I used this chance to give it a try. What’s funny is that as I was trying to find the link to Hiro’s twitter account I stumbled upon one of his videos where he showcases his inking process. Looking at it, it is obvious why they both look so different when it comes to the way the hair was inked. Having said that I’m glad I didn’t see it till after I was done so that I could compare both styles.

I used Airi Suzuki as a reference for this piece using a photo from her photobook “Aoiro”. I just changed some things to make her in the manga style and having her hold a gift.

Here is the final piece:

References used:

Here is the process:

Hope you guys had a great day today.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

February 14, 2019 0

Gengar Starry Sky

I tried doing another piece using photographs as the “paint”. My brother actually suggested I made one with Gengar when he showed me that photo I mentioned before (when I made Lynn Minmey). Also here is the artist and the picture I mentioned name is kotetsu_of (link will take you to the artists instagram).

I’ve always been a fan of this Pokemon and it’s previous evolutions.

With that said here is the finished piece:

Without a background:

Here are the photos used and reference:

Photos obtained from Pexels.com

Milkyway by kendall hoopes

Purple/Pink starry sky by Luck Galindo

star clouds and also the full moon by Pixabay

Here is the drawing process:

Digital process:

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

February 12, 2019 0

Obscurus 2019

I’ve been developing ideas for a story I wish to create. One of the things I did come up with right away were designs for characters, starting of course with the main character. Looking back on my notes about the story it self, well… it’s quite embarrassing. (⁄ ⁄^⁄ᗨ⁄^⁄ ⁄)

I’m kinda glad I was just writing notes all these years. Now that I have a bit more experience in life, art and stories which I deem good and bad I feel I can make a much better and interesting story. Some of the main ideas will remain but a good number of them will be either axed or used as a joke. More detail on this later.

Any way here is the main character Obscurus Nube (his name was at one point Nube Obscura) (will say more about what kind of character he is at a later date):

I feel his hair is a bit too big, will have to try a couple more versions till I decide on the final design. Decided to take off his necktie but overall his design remained the same. This was the original drawing I did in 2011 I believe.

I drew it traditionally first, inked and then scanned and edited digitally.

Here are the files I used to create the background. Wasn’t sure what to put for the background so I was just playing around till I noticed some things looking good and after some more editing I came up with the final piece.

And here is the process:

I want this character to be connected to the motif of the Moon (as for why I will talk about it later).

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

January 15, 2019 0

Kanzaki Kaori Fallen Angel

In episode 8 of To Aru Majutsu No Index III everyone was left hanging with the scene of Kanzaki Kaori wearing her Fallen Angel cosplay for Touma as a thanks for helping the Amakusa followers. So I figured I would draw her after finishing up the Kojiro painting. When I was done with the Fallen Angel painting I went ahead and watched episode 9 of To Aru today and much to my surprise they did show a bit more of Kanzaki with her cosplay (a lot more…) (#ﾟﾛﾟ#)

Hmmm… I made her outfit much less revealing but figured it would only take a couple of edits to change it to fit more closely to the one shown in the anime, though looking at it closely I’m amazed by how much of her cleavage is exposed (to the point it doesn’t make sense)! Σ(ﾟДﾟ;)

So with that I decided to make two versions. This was done using a G Pen and then colored using Photoshop.

Original:

More exposed version based on the anime:

References used:

The image that made me make two versions:

Here is the process:

I am contemplating make another version that has more details to see how much I can push it but still have it look good. Personally I really like the way this version came out. I’ll keep practicing these simpler color versions. I need to be as versatile as possible to be a good artist all around.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

December 7, 2018 0

Neo-Geo Land Miss X and Athena

This is the final piece all finally composited together. Making the background sure did take a while. It was all done using Copics. Copics are great but they do have their limitations and require quite a bit of steps in order to have them work the way I want them to. And since covering large areas takes a lot of ink it can be quite an expensive medium. But I wanted to see if I could get a handle on colors and values using nothing but the Copics.

I had to think a good bit about what I wanted the background to be but since I was going for a yanki theme I figured having them in the arcade setting would fit well. I was considering having Athena carrying a bat but decided against that for this one (maybe on another piece sometime in the future). Once I did finish the background I did have to calibrate the colors digitally and also clean up some of the forground objects so that I could place Athena and Miss X behind them. Once I did do that I went ahead and fixed their values so that they fit in with the background and then also added some shadows.

The final piece:

Reference picture used:

Background process:

Digital process:

Hope you guys like it.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

November 20, 2018 0

First painting corel painter 2018 Sayumi Michishige

This painting was finished on August 15.

I’ve been wanting to learn how to add color to my pieces so the best way is to study photos and also see why other peoples paintings work by recreating them. Using the eyedropper tool is quite useful but I want to practice and learn how to choose color just by using my eyes and instincts. Doing it traditionally is easier since I’m limited to the colors I have in hand. But digitally I have to really focus and think about it since I have every color imaginable at my disposal so it can get a bit overwhelming and the chance of screwing up is quite a possibility.

At the time of this painting I had invested in upgrading my Corel version up to 2018. So this is the inaugural painting I did for it. Corel and Photoshop are quite different. Photoshop is quite versatile and one can do a lot of things with it quite easily when it comes to editing but I feel that Corel is the better program to paint. Something about it makes painting more intuitive. But I tend to switch from one to the other when creating new paintings regularly. Sometimes I hit a bump and for some reason seem to find it easier to do on the other program. (・∧‐)ゞ

In any case I of course chose Sayumi Michishige as the subject, as you can guess I really love her aesthetic and her photo books are filled with a lot of great pictures to choose from. As stated before I chose colors by eyeballing it and am surprised I wasn’t too far off. If you compare my painting to the photo of course there are a lot of differences but I feel like I managed to capture the essence and you can tell it’s Sayu right? (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

This is the reference picture used from Sayu’s photobook “La”:

Here is the process:

The eyes were too big so I had to resize them.

And that should wrap it up for now. I really loved working on this painting and am glad I was able to get it to this point. It looks realistic but also like a painting which I really like.

Hope you guys like it.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

November 1, 2018 0