I finally finished making my new lightbox so I can now transfer line art as many times as I want so that I can practice more traditional styles.
Since I want to use my lightbox but don’t like having to move everything over and over again, I think it’s time that I finally make the lightbox that will fit in the desk opening. For that, I will scavenge the light and parts of my old lightbox. It took me a couple of hours but it was worth it.
This painting was done using my Holbein Watercolors. I like that I can play around with the opaqueness and vibrancy of the colors. But it’s obvious that I need to practice more. As I was painting I noticed that Momochi’s left (to our right) eye was misaligned. So when I was done painting I modified it digitally. I was going to leave the background blank but decided to add some blue brush strokes to emphasize the cold temperatures.
I want to try using the brushstrokes and colors that Alpay uses. They are amazing. But I also want to do ink drawings… Meaning that it would be a great if I transferred my line art to another paper. This calls for the use of a lightbox.
So I have a lightbox I built quite a while ago, but it takes a lot of space. It no longer works with my current setup. But, the desk I built has a place left open so that I would slide in a lightbox but I never built it. I think it might be time I scavenge the lights and built a smaller version that can dock into my desk.
Time was limited today so I drew a quick sketch. It has been snowing pretty consistently lately where I live, so I want to make more snow based artworks before we move into the spring season. This time I wanted to draw Momochi skiing from her time in Country Girls. She was really in her element it seemed when she was doing it in the DVD Magazine vol. 2. I wonder if she went skiing often?
I’m not sure what I will do with this line art. I could shade it with pencil, transfer it to another paper and paint it with watercolor or paint it digitally. We’ll see.
Every once in a while I check out the Goodwill auctions and was surprised when I found a Surface Pro 5 being sold. From the pictures shown it seemed to be in pristine condition and had the keyboard cover included. So I decided to take a chance and bid on it. And to my surprise I won. It took a while to get to me which sucked but in the mean time I ordered the accesories that were missing (these being the charger and the surface pen). Luckily I managed to find a genuine used charger and the pen was on sale for that week I was searching for it. When I finally received it I was surprised that it came with the original packaging. The actual surface pro was a bit dirty but looked almost new after I cleaned it. It has me thinking just who bought it and why they decided to donate it. I got the i5 with 8gb or ram which worried me since Corel Painter works better with stronger specs.
You know it’s funny, I was a bit stressed since I had to remind the Goodwill to send it. Which made the wait time longer than it should have been. But by the time it arrived, it was pretty much already October… meaning Inktober. It wasn’t till just the end of last week that I had a chance to finally test it out.
And the first model to be painted using my new Microsoft Surface Pro 5 is Momoko Tsugunaga. This time I used some screenshots I took from her last Photobook where she was inside an ice cream parlor. There were many amazing scenes to choose from, but I decided on this when where Momochi was looking out the window pensively as she was reflected off a picture frame. I painted the background first, then to Momochi and finished with Momochi’s reflection. I think she came out super cute.
So, how did the Surface Pro handle Corel Painter? To my surprise it was quite smooth. Although some things were a bit slow to react (such as making successive brush strokes or changing the brush size using the bracket keys), it wasn’t really by that much. All in all, as long as I have it in high performance during painting sessions it works without any problems. I’m actually quite amazed. Now, I haven’t really been keeping track but painting nonstop with High performance enabled gave the battery about 3-4 hours of life before I had to recharge it. Recharging is also quite amazing, it takes about 30-45 minutes to fully charge it. After a full days worth of painting the Surface Pro did get warm but it wasn’t uncomfortably hot at all which again was also very surprising considering just how thin it is. I already made a second painting so this quick first impressions is taking into account both experiences. What’s great is that it works as a tablet with the power of a computer at all other times. I was worried that I may have had to upgrade to a new stronger version but this works amazingly well.
For the fifth day I drew Momochi. I finally got to see parts of “Momo Play” (a dvd series where Momochi cosplays various outfits). Among them was one where Momochi cosplays as a maid which is just freakin cute. I just couldn’t resist drawing her. The reference used was from where she was walking down the stairs. I went for a manga look.
This painting is somewhat bittersweet. On the one hand, it is the first painting done with my new drawing tablet but that is because my old Xp pen was no longer working properly after the latest Windows update. (I’ll probably talk about it more later at some point). I recently got a third job so time for painting has decreased by a good bit so I will probably be posting less than before. Maybe that’s a good thing though, it will give me some time to step away from a painting and look at them with fresh eyes.
Although I have only had my new tablet for a couple of days, I am enjoying it. The new monitor setup is a lot more comfortable as well. Man, it feels great being able to use Corel Painter again. I’m still a bit rusty with the oil brushes so this whole painting was mostly done using the sergeant brush. The model that will be the first painting is Momochi. I got the reference from a screenshot that I took from the making of “Hatachi Momochi”. Video Photobooks are great because I can get more references. Man, I’m glad I live in this amazing era. Thank you Momochi for making so many video appearances!
I wanted to try another pixel art piece, this time with Momoko. I used a photo of Momochi camping from her “Momochi Zukan” photobook as reference. I started with a 200×200 canvas, but it was a little too big for the effect I wanted. So decided to make it into a 100×100 instead.
It’s been almost a month since I had painted this piece, I can’t believe I have been pushing it back by that much…
The reference comes from Momoko’s final photobook.
The ink painting used can be seen here:
This follows my current practice working with ink brushes, the translucence it contains and the application of paint and how it interacts with it. I have a couple of other pieces that I can use to continue this practice. It’s amazing, but it does have it’s limitations on what can be done (coloring wise). On the other hand, the effects and textures are really unique and interesting.
When I first used the the Sargent brush I wanted to try out it’s full capabilities and the first painting I used this on was with Momoko Tsugunaga. One other thing I wanted to try out was a painting with water drops and condensation. With that in mind, I chose Momoko’s photo from the variety show (I believe it is London Hearts) where her entire look was given a complete overhaul. It seems that these were for a calendar where different talents were all given the same treatment. It’s a shame but I couldn’t find any recordings of this online, only some screengrabs (this means someone out there does have it/had it). Based on said screen grabs there were about three different photos that I could have used (maybe for a later painting). There’s no denying that Momoko looks really cute with this look, but I prefer her more natural look better.
I mentioned this before, but I think I am finally forming my favorite tools for painting digitally. I’ve been slacking on watercolors though, so I should do some more traditional paintings soon.
As can be seen above, this painting comes with two Youtube links. I already have a couple of paintings that have been recorded and another one that has been edited and will be live this Thursday. Aside from speed paints, I want to make instructional videos where I focus on one technique/topic and just some videos about things that interest me (although I haven’t figured out how I want to structure them yet). Luckily Youtube is allowing songs to be used as long as the owners are cool with it, of course this also means that these videos get no monetization capabilities. Which is a good trade. I actually lost a past channel because of the old methods that Youtube had implemented.
I didn’t have any image in mind at the beginning but as I kept drawing I ended up with a pose that remind me of the music video for “Fighting Pose wa Date ja nai!”. While I was working on it, I finally remembered that I had turned off the smoothing function since my old computer setup couldn’t keep up. But that no longer is an issue. And it really makes the difference since my paint lines keep wobbling all over.
A bonus painting for Momochi’s birthday. Reference used was from her blog photos. I wanted to try out a cute shoujo 80s anime style. Happy birthday Momochi.
