"A Hopeless Dream Chaser"
Airi had a recent post where she had a really cute outfit. I just really wanted to draw her in it. The sweater has a lot of details which I wanted to draw. The colors are also really beautiful so I’m really looking forward to painting her sometime in the future.
Reference can be seen here:
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
For today’s drawing/painting I decided to try out some of the inks that I created yesterday. Since I would only be doing the lineart with it and coloring it I went with the lightest ink I have. As for the style I went with LittleThunder‘s style and coloring since it is probably my favorite traditional art style. Today before I had begun today’s drawing I saw her latest art video of her painting one of her drawings. So with that in mind I went with a more simple and flat coloring style only adding some coloring in the skin and hair. I really love the way it came out. Although I have yet to try this coloring style with a background which of course would have a lot of variables that I would have to work with. But that will be for another work and day. I quite like the way the ink interacts with the copic markers.
I really liked the photo I used from Airi‘s instagram. It has a retro 80s-90s look which really fits with this coloring style.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
The plan was to try out the other color pencil set I had but the colors weren’t right for the drawing I decided to do. But my Prismacolor set did have the right colors so I decided to use those instead. I was surprised at how amazing they were. I was having a lot of problems with them back in the day I remember, but I guess that was just my inexperience. Having said that, I’m nowhere near as good as the artists that specialize in color pencils. I was recently looking at the artwork of michaelfreemanpastelartist. He specializes in using pastel pencils it seems, and his art is photo realistic. It’s really amazing. I guess if I practice for a bit I should be able to improve a great deal my self, but my plan is to focus more on watercolors when it comes to traditional art. Instead I will use my color pencils as support. This has been the plan for a good bit, but I’ve never really used them together before. Maybe I’ll make that my next project.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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