"A Hopeless Dream Chaser"
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
This drawing was started back in October 27 when I got some new lead that was 2h I believe. Now that I had some time to look at it again, I made some changes and inked it. I really feel that the ink and changes I made, created a much better drawing that looked more like Momoko.
Reference used was from Momoko’s last photobook Momochi.
Next time I want to try out the pencil with watercolors, but I think in this case ink was the way to go. Momochi looks so cute with twintails.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
This is a digital painting using the line art from day 7 of Inktober 2020. The theme was fancy that day. When I started painting I just had the idea of keeping it flat and simple. I focused on Momoko first then I spent a good bit of time on the chair. I just started adding colors to see what would come out and when I was done I got the urge to add some stitching to the seat cushions. Getting the right colors was a bit easier when I used the hue ability of Photoshop. When I got the shape and colors at a state I was happy with I added some texture to give that stitching look. I tried a couple of techniques but I feel that making some skipping hatching worked. Keeping it uniform and in the same orientation keeps it looking clean. The background it self I wasn’t too sure about. I then just started adding background elements to make it look like a tea house. The hue used to be more yellowish, but when I was playing with the hues, I arrived at this whiter background. It’s been a while since I last painted so I was a bit worried, but I noticed that I was able to paint with a lot more calmness and ease. Soon I should be able to clear up some more time to use for art. I can’t wait to try more things out.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Today’s prompt is hide. After a little bit of thought I decided to use the scans of Momoko’s last photobook as reference to draw today’s drawing. What I did differently today was just learn from the clothes and the tree used, I wanted to make my own pose. I was imagining a scene where Momoko was playing hide and seek and decided to give up her position in a cute way.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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
Today was a rough one but I managed to make some time to draw. Today I decided to draw one of the planned drawings I talked about a couple of days ago. I had to composite many reference pictures that I had screen captured before October I believe. I was unsure if I should draw her at a closer view or not (if I had I would have had more time to add more details and ink/hatch the drawing). But I really wanted to draw Saki’s outfit from Otona na no yo! She looks like a really cute doll. Personally I believe she had the best outfit by far for that music video. While I was looking at the screenshots of the mv (it took me a while but I captured all scenes where Saki appeared, most of the video), I got to compare everyone’s movements during the dance scenes. She can really move. Her dance moves are powerful and cute, I don’t really know how to describe them but the flow and execution are definitely top notch. No wonder she is the captain.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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