Inktober 2018 #6 Kamei Eri

It’s the 6th day so how about a sixth generation member of Morning Musume. I’ve been obsessed with Michishige Sayumi lately so this time I chose Kamei Eri, probably the funniest member in Morning Musume’s history. She’s just so funny and cute in a way that was entirely just Kamei Eri. It’s no wonder she is a fan favorite for many people. On top of that she gave it her all in the concerts. It’s really hard not to like her. One can really find her charm in any of her appearances in Haromoni or any of the dvd’s she appeared on. It’s a shame one doesn’t hear much from her anymore after her graduation. I hope she is doing great as a “normal” person.

One complaint on the drawing itself is that I made the eyes too dark. I should have given them a slightly lighter shade. But over all I really like the way she turned out.

This time I only used my G Pen (definitely much easier to control than the brush pens).

Here is the reference picture I used from Eri’s photobook “Thanks” (her final photobook). I like this picture because it fits so well with Autumn.:

And here is the process for those who are interested.

That will be all for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 6, 2018 0

Inktober #5 – Takahashi Ai

By now it’s obvious that I am a big fan of Morning Musume, specifically the Platinum Era (don’t really keep up with the new generations after my favorite members left). So since it was the 5th day of October I decided to choose a 5th generation member, and of course it would have to be Takahashi Ai who really made me want to learn more about Morning Musume. I was in high school when I came across this Japanese music video of a group of girls singing. I didn’t know who they were but they captured my interest right away. There voices were all different from each other and the music was really energetic. The girls themselves were incredibly cute but there was one member who just captured my attention. She had short hair, a beautiful smile and a voice that left me amazed and wanting more. I chose this drawing based on the scene that really stuck out and I had in my mind whenever I thought about Mikan.

Prior to this I wasn’t really interested in Idols, but this MV really changed my perspective and for a time really got me involved in the world of idols which made me see their struggles, work ethic, and triumphs. I’d say it had a big impact in my life. Whenever I went to a place like the summit of a mountain or of the tallest sand dune after the struggle to hike up it I had this urge to just play and listen to Mikan while I rested atop that accomplishment thinking, “I did it”. (Does this even make sense?)

Sadly I was super busy so I started drawing this piece really late at night and ran out of time. That was a mistake because I decided to use some brush pens that I forgot I had for … well some years now I guess. They are the Koi Coloring brush pen set from Sakura. This set contains three different values of cool grey and three of warm grey. One thing I should have done was to choose to use either the cool or the warm but not both.

Seeing as I was low on time, maybe I should have left it like this. Or went with the hatching technique to add shadows.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690015/in/dateposted-public/

But once I added these black areas the values changed dramatically so I had to continue. Plus I was intent on giving these brush pens a try.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216689935/in/dateposted-public/

It’s going alright but really rough and unfinished/ weird, I just had to keep pushing it even further.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216689915/in/dateposted-public/

So I added more shadows… But, well it’s just unfinished. I ran out of time, in a few minutes it would be the 6th of October and I had to go to sleep as well. So with that I had to call it quits and this is what I ended up with. It’s so close to being finished and looking right, and yet it isn’t. Because I added these shadows I changed the values quite a bit, thinking now I could fix it by adding darker values in other areas to lighten the shadows on Ai’s face. I will leave it like this since I believe it is in the spirit of this challenge to live with the difficulties and mistakes one makes along the way.

One other that could have helped was to make thicker lines in certain areas to make the areas that I wanted to appear lighter, well, lighter.

Here is the reference I used. I took a screen grab from the MV Mikan:

Here is the process for those who are interested:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690665/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690625/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690585/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690495/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690455/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690405/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690265/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690195/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690135/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690085/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690055/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690015/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44407756054/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216689935/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216689915/in/dateposted-public/

That should be all for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 5, 2018 0

Inktober 2018 #4 Double Feature – Asuka and Rei

I wasn’t really sure what to draw, but my brother let me know that October 4th is Evangelion’s 23rd anniversary which is why I decided to draw Asuka and Rei.

These are the final drawings. I was planning on only drawing Asuka, but decided to draw Rei as well. After all she was one of the reasons I first decided to watch Evangelion. More on that later.

I used three references for the Asuka drawing. Since it’s October and Fall I went with Asuka from the rebuilds since she wears that cool jacket and hat.

As for the Rei drawing, back in the day when I didn’t have internet or even a dvd player I used to rent vhs tapes from my public library. Luckily they carried anime which I of course rented. One of my favorite things about those cassettes were the trailers since they were made like amvs. They used to show scenes from the anime and played (usually) the opening theme song which I loved watching either because of the animation, the song or both.

As for Evangelion, I forget what tape I played (though I believe it was probably Blue Seed), but there was a trailer for Evangelion. I had never seen nor heard of it before. But it blew my mind. This rendition of the trailer had the opening theme song (so far I have only found another version of the trailer online which uses the song Ode to Joy) and it just blew me away. It was … beatiful … glorious… and captivating. I just wanted to see it.

One of the images that captivated me was when I saw a blue haired girl behind a window looking right at me with her beautiful red eyes. Such a great trailer.

As it turns out, after looking through my local library (I didn’t know how to really navigate the internet, much less their website), but it just so happened to carry the whole series of Evangelion. I was elated, but there was one problem. It was on DVD. I didn’t own one at that time. It was torture knowing it was so close and yet so far out of my reach.

Anyway, that is why I made this piece. I could have added some shading but it was too late by this point.

These are the references I used:

Here is the process for those who are interested:

And this is the process for Rei:

It was all going well until I made a mistake and once again ran my hand over Rei’s hair (that’s 4 mistakes in a row).

That should be all for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 4, 2018 0

Inktober 2018 #3 – Kid Goku and Yusuke

I’ve had this idea of making a piece with Goku and Yusuke both wearing sunglasses. So I thought I should give that a try. Of course doing it for inktober would have it’s challenges since I would have to navigate through any mistakes I make along the way.

This is how I ended it. I forgot to add Goku’s tail…

Reference pictures used:

And here is the process for those who are interested:

From what I’ve learned, I can overcome mistakes by making light marks for my ideas and darker thicker lines for what the actual drawing will be.

And it was at this point that I was getting a bit scared. I had so many unnecessary lines and Goku’s right arm was just wrong. I almost wanted to just start a new one. But decided against it and see if I could save it. Also I accidentally hit my pen and it fell on the right corner of the paper. So far that is three mistakes in a row.

So despite looking quite dirty, I decided to fix all the mistakes.

Once again I was careless and rested my hand on Yusuke’s uniform, luckily this time it wasn’t too bad.

With the outline done, it is time to ink the darker areas and see if it can fix my mistakes.

And just to finish it, I added some hatching on certain areas to make a shading effect which not only made it look better but it also helped mask even more mistakes.

That should be all for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 3, 2018 0

Inktober 2018 #2 Black Cat

The second drawing for Inktober. This time I decided to draw a cat.

Reference picture used:

Here is the process for those who are interested.

Just like before, I messed up and pressed down in the wrong direction and the nib bounced back and splattered across the paper. That’s two mistakes in a row so far.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 2, 2018 0

October is finally here! Inktober 2018 #1

I first heard about Inktober last year. I wasn’t really planing on joining in this year but after thinking about it, it should be a good way to practice my drawing and inking techniques.

What I understood about Inktober is that one should not only draw only using ink and a pen, but that one should not use anything else. So no rough drafting, just drawing with the pen and working with the mistakes that happens as one goes along.

For the my first drawing I of course drew Sayumi Michishige. I seem to be able to draw rather fast… or at least it seemed fast, I feel that those countless hours I spend investing on my drawing skills have been paying off.

This is the reference I used from her book “Sayu: Sayumi Michishige Personal Book”:

This is the process for those who are interested.

If you look to the right at Sayu’s left elbow you can see a big blotch of ink. That was a careless mistake I made where I ran my hand over it while the ink was still wet. Nothing I can do except keep going.

Oh, before I forget. I used a brush pen and this other pen to ink the boots. Forgot to take a photo of them with the dip pen.

I’ll try to draw one drawing everyday for Halloween, and also do some of the other artwork… it’s going to be a rather busy month.

In any case, that should be all,

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 1, 2018 0