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
I finally finished. I guess because there’s so many details it took quite a bit of time. But overal I like the way it turned out. The Holbein Watercolors do exactly what I want them to do, I don’t think I can go back to any other watercolors at this point. And this is using Master’s Touch watercolor paper which isn’t really that good quality (although I highly recommend it since it’s the best paper at the price range). At some point I should try painting on some higher quality paper which I tend to neglect since they are, you know, quite expensive. But I feel confident enough to try it now. Once I again I am using watered down ink for the outlines which works really good when applying color on top of it since it’s also translucent and reacts with the color one applies on top. This leaves it open to apply more color to the outline or ink to make it darker. Although I did add some shadows to give the background some 3dimentinality, I decided to make Miyabi’s colors flat so as to not overwork the painting which I tend to do. Doing so gives the finished painting a much cleaner look that pops out quite nicely (Thank you Little Thunder for showcasing your artwork! I always learn so much looking at it.).
I really love the colors that Miyabi chose for her kimono and her makeup. They really fit well with the background colors. I was planning to add the color variations to the kimono. But as I was playing around with the way Mars Violet interacted with the yellow mixture I used for the Kimono base color, I decided it would look best as a simple color. Hopefully I managed to replicate Miyabi’s beauty through my brush.
We are well into the New Year now, so I will now focus on some winter drawings/paintings before the season ends.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
https://darkcloudxero.com/2021/01/06/miyabi-natsuyaki-new-year-temple-visit-2021-line-art/
I really loved Miyabi’s New Years photos. She looks really beautiful with her kimono. She mentioned it was a retro look, so I’m guessing this is a Showa era style? It really suits her. She looks so ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ with the shrine in the background. I think an 80s/90s anime style would look good but I feel it will also look good in watercolor. Just recently on her Twitter she mentioned that she has been getting nostalgic for Berryz Koubou. She also gave the impression that there might be a reunion of some kind.
･:*+.(( °ω° ))/.:+
Thank you so much for this past year Miyabi, hopefully this year will be great for you.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I’m going to be practicing with watercolors for a bit. I wan’t to see what I can do with the media. The first watercolor of the year is Momochi, using the first drawing of the year. I was a bit worried as I was painting but things were becoming more clear as I kept going. She looks so cute. It’s a bit of a shame the background didn’t get picked up by the scanner.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Happy New Year 2021!
For the first drawing of 2021 I drew Momochi. My original plan was to paint it with watercolors but I decided to make two versions of it, an inked version and a painted one. The painted version I plan to do next. As I thought, the DVD Magazines had plenty of references for me. The upward glance she gave while travelling up the mountain was killer. It’s probably even more potent if she did that in person.
I used a mix of ink and in some sections a more diluted ink for sections I wanted to keep light but still give shadows to. This time I made sure to hatch it slower so that the end result would look cleaner. My plan is to continue doing that from now on. The process didn’t take that much longer anyway. I got really lucky that Momochi’s face wasn’t ruined actually, a huge blob of ink just poured out of my pen below her chin. Luckily that section was supposed to be blacked out and the ink didn’t spread to her face. I won’t lie, it was an agonizing 25-30 seconds while I tried to find some tissue paper to soak up the ink before it began going everywhere. I feel like the drawing wasn’t complete until I added some blush lines, I really like the end result.
Hope you guys had a great start to the year. Here’s hoping for the best.
Happy New Year!
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Since I had some time yesterday, I decided to try out my new calligraphy brush. The model that will be the first to try it out is Momochi, using a photo from her last photobook as reference. I’m surprised at how accurate the brush the brush can be. I really enjoyed the experience. For this painting I decided to do it freehand which can be pretty dicey but it does speed up the process by quite a lot. And sure enough it did, but I did do one mistake. I put the mouth and nose too low so I made the decision to alter that using Photoshop.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Today I decided to paint using the Corel Painter real watercolors again. This time I decided to use different brush presets and they definitely act differently. But I guess that is to be expected. Looking at the end result, they give off that watercolor and Copic look. I used the inktober day 26 line art of Momochi’s last photobook. I wanted to emulate the coloring style of classic manga.
I really want to draw more of Momochi. Luckily the Country Girls dvd magazine has plenty of references of her interacting with the snow. And I really want to paint her in the red outfit from her last photobook. But before that, I want to make a New Year’s piece, I already have an idea so it’s just a matter of doing it.
Hope you guys had a great weekend.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I wanted to once again give the 90s anime aesthetic another try today. I painted Saki using Photoshop and the background with Corel Painter. For the texture that makes it look like it’s being shown in an old tv I used the Photoshop filter (I believe it was noise) which gave me just the right textured I wanted. I could have gotten away with it if I had muted the colors a bit more but this works even better.
Saki’s outfit and dance moves are quite amazing in this pv. I wonder if she would ever consider doing a solo career? I’m just glad she is still active online though, I really enjoy seeing her Kendama progress.
The original drawing was done for inktober 2020 day 13: https://darkcloudxero.com/2020/10/13/inktober-2020-13-saki-shimizu/
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
During this year’s Halloween, Miyabi cosplayed in different costumes. One of them was of a cute cat girl. For one of the photos she uploaded she had a really embarrassed and shy face that caught my attention and I wanted to try and draw/paint it. Looking at several clips of Miyabi it seems she has had various occasions like these where her shyness shows through. I really think that’s one of her charm points.
Photos of Miyabi in her cat cosplay: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHAxrICht-M/
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
This time I wanted to try out different styles. First, now that I had a stronger pc I wanted to try out the watercolor brush that Corel Painter has. Before in my old system, the program would take a long time to process one brushstroke. And this computer just did it like it was nothing. I then moved over to the real watercolors brush and I only had to wait probably about 1/2 a second for my computer to process the realistic watercolor painting. I do have to practice with them a bit more, but I’m amazed at how realistic the way the paints interact with each other and how I can layer the paint, glaze and pretty much anything that can be done with real watercolors. But with the advantage that digital painting has. I painted rather quickly and that shows, but I’m sure it can be polished to a high degree.
For the second painting I tried the oily bristle brush so that I could compare. It looks good, but I should probably spend more time to blend or make the transitions between colors a bit more cleanly.
For the third painting process I went for a more pop manga style. I’ve been following a couple of artists these days, but I was specifically looking at the art of
__tree_13 : https://www.instagram.com/p/CH0WQnCnsYn/
The artist does a great job of bringing back that 80s style and I really wanted to have a go at it. For this one I used a combination of Photoshop and Clip Studio for the screen tone. I’m really glad that I can open a .psd file with Clip Studio and Painter.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
