Airi Sweater

There was this photo recently uploaded by Airi Suzuki wearing a comfy looking brown sweater that I just had to draw/paint.

It was also a bonus that her hairstyle was specially cut for her end of the year °C-ute concert. I was just about finished yesterday painting Airi when my brother walked in and asked when I would make a painting that took longer. I was wondering if he meant that I was rushing through this painting and was leaving it too rough. But it seems he just meant that lately I have only been doing line art which takes only a couple of hours (Airi as well). That’s when I decided to add a background. Using the wall background would not do so I decided to make a winter scenery. I ended up mashing up a couple of reference photos (including some from Airi’s photobooks). It looks like the road crossing the train tracks is heading straight to the sea huh? I guess the idea is that there is a ramp for people to drive towards the beach.

I was a bit apprehensive about the details in the sweater when I was just about to start, but luckily with my current experience I know that it’s just a matter of painting and now stopping. Once that flow starts, it doesn’t take that long to finish. Once I added the background, I did have to tweak the saturation and values on Airi though.

I kinda wanna animate this painitng…

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Santa Airi 2021

Airi recently released some photos of her as a Santa that I found both cute and fun, so I had the idea of making a painting using that idea.

I’ve been working on this painting for a couple of days now. I first drew the line art with a combination of my brush and my g pen for Airi’s base body, not including her clothes. I did this because I feel I make clothes look to stiff with the pen. For the background I used a lighter mixture of my ink while Airi herself was inked using a more concentrated ink mixture.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been playing around with the shortcut keys I feel I need most to make paintings more efficiently. I’m really glad I did because it made the painting process flow much smoother. The painting was much brighter but I feel this darker amber atmosphere fits the scene a whole lot better.

Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy Holidays! I think I’m going to take a three day break and just chill for a while. Hope you guys have a great time.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

‘Soft’ Airi Suzuki

Based on the drawing I made for this year’s Inktober for day 23. Because watercolor lifts the ink and makes the drawing really muddy, I traced it with my lightbox using only my pencil. I actually had to redo it twice because I was trying to erase the lines and graphite smudges before I started painting but then I couldn’t see the lines anymore… Erasing is ok on some papers, but not on the one I was using this time…

Luckily I still managed to finish the painting today despite a couple of setbacks. One of the biggest ones was the fear of messing up. It’s been a while since I last painted traditionally so that’s always a bit intimidating. But it’s always a matter of just starting. I almost messed it up right out of the gate since I didn’t completely clean the main brush I used (it still had some ink in it). The good things was that I could still lift up the affected area (it was the face…).

I really love watercolors. The look it has and versatility are just amazing.

reference used:

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Airi Matsuri

I wanted to just draw a quick brush painting because I was looking at Yoshitaka Amano’s artwork. There were these pictures that Airi posted where she was dressed in a happi and wrote a small stage. It’s a really fun subject. Line size variation was a bit tough to control when the ink is too watered down. I guess using a smaller brush would quickly fix this, but I’ve seen other artists do a lot with just one brush. I’ll have to practice this a bit more.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Inktober 2021 Day 10

I just saw Airi’s new music video, I love it. It is like a 60/70s scifi show. It was really fun and the song is just amazing. I really like the way Airi’s music has evolved into this fun and interesting style that sets her appart from other artists. And this new song was no exemption.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Airi Suzuki New Brushes

After not making digital art for about two weeks I decided to paint once again but came to a rather sad surprise, my XP Pen is having some issues working with my art programs such as Corel, Krita and Clip Studio. The pen cursor gets trapped into a small central rectangle of the screen. Putting my pen on any part of the actual physical screen has the cursor stay in this invisible barrier on the center of the display (hopefully this makes sense). For whatever reason this problem isn’t happening in Photoshop though. I figured this was a perfect time to buy some brushes from an artist that I like, Toko Suzuki:

https://www.instagram.com/toko_suzuki/

I quite like the texture that Toko’s pieces have so I decided to buy the brush pack listed on the bio. So far I have only used the “Sampled brush 4 15”, but I quite like that rough texture and translucence that happens when using pressure variation. I’ll be practicing a bit more with them and then seeing some of the video tutorials to get a better sense of them.

Reference used is from Airi Suzuki’s instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/airisuzuki_official_uf/

and coloring inspiration was from the artist DannyLaiLai:

https://www.artstation.com/danny008

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

℃-ute group anniversary 2021

I’m a couple of days late, but I wanted to draw a piece commemorating the anniversary of ℃-ute, a group that I hold very dearly along with Berryz Koubou. I’m always delighted in knowing that they performed in Mexico.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Inktober 2020 21 Sleep Buono!

Last year for day 24 of inktober I had given this drawing a try, although I had modified it a bit. Since the prompt for today was sleep, I decided to try once again. Since it is a close up I was able to add a bit more detail to the drawing. Despite having a blueray with the Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! PV the scene where they are napping is a bit blurry due to some effects they used. I had stitch different parts together to get the scene together. Buono! is so nostalgic…

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Inktober 2020 08 Airi Susuki

Today’s theme is teeth. I really think Airi’s right canine tooth is really cute so I wanted to draw a picture of her smiling. Recently she throwed a pitch for a game. All her photos were of her smiling, it seems she was having a lot of time. I used one of her photos and modified it. At first I was thinking of having her do one of those exagerated pitching poses like from an old school anime but I wanted to keep her smile the focus. This time I had a bit more time so I inked and hatched it.

Reference used: https://www.instagram.com/p/CF6xNIDJZIG/

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

C-ute day 2020

Today was a busy day but I somehow was still be able to draw, ink and edit this piece with photoshop. I wanted to give the ink style of the previously uploaded drawing again. But this time five times.
Today (yesterday in Japan) was ℃-ute’s Day. So that is the reason I drew this drawing. Thank you ℃-ute for all the years you’ve given us.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Initial A Suzuki Airi vs Takumi

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.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

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