"A Hopeless Dream Chaser"
There was a ranking done by current idols regarding their all time favorite songs. I was sad that there was no Berryz Koubou and ℃-ute songs that made it, but we got the ultimate convergence of both groups up to second place. Buono! Seeing that made me so happy and tear up again. They have so many good and fun songs but of course they went for Hatsukoi Cider.
Hasta mañana,
-NUBE
Last time I uploaded the rough draft, this time it’s the cleaned line art. I decided to finish it all using Clip Studio Paint. Next time I’ll upload the background.
Hasta mañana,
-NUBE
Here is a rough draft for a future painting of Buono!
Hasta mañana,
-NUBE
Airi made a cute post on her Instagram promoting CDTV’s New Year Live 2024. I wanted to paint something for Chinese New Year and this was the perfect subject. Her outfit was super cute.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I really miss Buono! I’m so glad they have so many recorded media of their activities. What’s great is that there are a lot of new fans appearing. Their legacy continues to grow!
This painting took me longer than I thought it would but I’m finally finished. I went with an 80s anime style. I started with the background and then started painting from left to right. The line art was overlaid digitally then set to multiply. The base colors went in first then I started adding the leopard, polka dots and star designs, etc. I then created a separate layer where I multiplied the shadow layers. Then above all the layers for each member I created a new one for the lighting. To keep with the anime aesthetic I chose the typical anime hair colors so that they popped more. For their eyes, I chose their member colors.
As I was working on this painting I got reminded that Berryz Koubou’s 18th debut anniversary was on March 3rd. Sadly I wasn’t able to do a piece to commemorate it though. I still wan to make one though. I have an idea for one, but maybe I should save that one for their 20th anniversary. Or maybe I should just make that one, we’ll see.
A great intro to Buono! is Hatsukoi Cider. Check it out here (Their official video has over 5 million views!):
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Didn’t have the time to finish it today but at least the line art is ready. I was thinking about uploading an inked version but this refined pencil line art will do for now. I saw the prompt for idols and of course I had to draw something for it. There are many options but I decided to go with BUONO! The formation of Momoko, Miyabi and Airi was just magical.
The reference was from their 2016 Festa Concert.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Happy Halloween everyone! Although by this time it’s pretty much already over. Hopefully you guys had a great time. Today also marks the last day of Inktober. I got out somewhat early today from my other job so I decided to make multiple drawings for this special day. I was having a hard time deciding who to draw for the last day and just decided that there was no reason to just choose one. So I made three instead. I was actually going to make five… but that was pushing it.
For today, I decided to draw Karin Miyamoto in a maid outfit (super cute), Airi in her Sailor Moon cosplay (I’ve been craving to draw her for such a long time now) and Momochi in the outfit she used for the 2016 NTV Halloween Live event.
Didn’t have time to hatch or ink them today but I at least managed to finish the line art.
In terms of Inktober anyway, see you guys next year. Hopefully you guys enjoyed my drawings this month.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
This will be the actual entry to the contest, now that it’s completely painted. I debated with going with a more painterly style or a more anime like style. After playing around a bit, I decided to go with the anime style. I tried to keep the same color scheme. I added some static to the background which for some reason intensified when I resized the whole painting to a smaller size. I contemplated whether to add some blood to the piece but decided against it…
For the background, if I remember correctly (I think I learned this in art class when I was in middle school) Van Gogh was a fan of Japan. A bit of an Otaku. So I thought it would be fun to play around with that idea with the paintings in the background.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
We are actually still getting snow where I live, so that inspired me to finally give this painting a try before the weather finally changes to a warmer one. I really love the colors of Airi in this cold weather and wanted to give it a try for a while now. It’s also been a while since I did a realistic painting so I opted to go for that. There are so many more photos I want to try painting so we’ll see when I get another chance.
This painting is based on Airi’s digital photobook vol. 92. I only used the real tapered wet flat brush for the whole piece. I like the brush but it can be hard to use because when I try to use the same paint color, I can’t quite get it back using the eyedrop tool since each bristle stroke is different and mixes together. I already have a number of paintings lined up where I kept trying out this brush and a new one that I believe is my new main brush, to be used with the oily bristle and tapered oils brush.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Originally drawn for inktober 2020 day 08.
It can be found here: https://darkcloudxero.com/2020/10/08/inktober-2020-08-airi-susuki/
I used the pastel brush for the background which gave it quite a bit of texture while still being rather loose. Airi was painted in flat colors using Photoshop before moving over to Corel Painter for the other color layers. I remembered that I had left the logo sections free which prompted me to add Suu-san and an A for Airi. For some reason it takes me longer to paint solid sections more than doing it freestyle using Corel Painter’s Oily Brush. Thinking about it now, it might be easier if I just rework the line art digitally and use the bucket tool like animators do. Aesthetically though, if the drawing itself isn’t good, I guess it won’t work either way. I also wonder if having solid black lines might be too much for this type of paintings. I’ll have to keep experimenting. I really want to do more studies of Airi, there are a couple of photos that I have had in mind.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
The line art was first done for inktober 2020 day 21. This painting was done on Sunday but decided to upload today. For this painting I decided to go for a simpler anime style which can be quite aesthetically pleasing. I wanted to add a good amount of detail but still keep it quite simple and not over work it. I really like this image from Kiss!Kiss!Kiss! I believe this is my second time drawing it but first time painting it. It was a relaxing and pleasant experience.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
It’s kind of a shame I didn’t do this one for Airi’s birthday but I was quite busy so it couldn’t be helped. This drawing was done in April 17 of 2019. I tried painting it on the 23rd using the reference picture as a guide for the colors as well. But it didn’t end well. The line art was just not working correctly with the painting. So over all it looked quite unnatural and weird. I then tried again on the 25th after I got frustrated and made the colors simpler and more anime like in an effort to make the lineart work better. But the result wasn’t much better. I just had too much trouble trying to blend them together. Well, after a year of countless hours of painting I decided to give it another try. I won’t lie, I still had that trauma of not being able to paint it correctly but the only way to find out is to just go ahead and do it. Annoyingly I did have some problems when I started painting it. Seeing as the line work was pretty dark and plentiful (when it came to the hatching) it just didn’t look right. I tried flat colors thinking that would work but after three tries I had to stop and rethink everything. The next day though I finally decided to paint it the way I have been painting lately. But this time I decided to make the linework lighter, I left it at around 65% of the darkness. Also, this time I decided to try and not look at the reference photo and just paint it the way I believed would work. Also, since most of my paintings have been coming out quite light (in terms of color and values), I decided to go for a more vibrant and deeper color pallette. And well, I really like the result.
I have noticed I have been working mainly with the warm colors in the yellow and red range, but whenever I try to do another color scheme I mess it up or it just doesn’t look right. I want to try cool colors for my next piece.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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