I took about a week off from Christmas to New Years but have been working on some new pieces during that time. On around January 3rd I started to work on the first artwork of 2019. Of course I decided to make a drawing/inking/painting of Sayumi Michishige. I had bought her new photobook “Dream” last year but didn’t open it till New Years. I really loved it. Some of the photos are quite magical and give a fairy tale feel.

What I ended up doing was choosing some photos from her “Dream” photobook, Instagram and some others I had stored up. I wasn’t too sure about how I would have done the background but it turned out to be a good opportunity to try out using some patterned papers that I have been collecting over the years. I have been stockpiling them but I haven’t actually used them in anything till now (I tried making one before with The Kubo artwork but it was a failed attempt). I did edit these patterned background, which makes me excited to see what I can do with them. Speaking of the background I wanted to draw the rabbit from the Haro Moni show where they had a segment going on amusement rides to promote merchandise. But I was afraid I would be a little too similar to an amazing painting done by koha . You can check it out here

I really love the way she was painted and the way the rabbit stands in the back. When I finished my painting and I went to look at Koha’s I was surprised at how different our styles and techniques were.

For the color selections I decided to scan my current Copic swatches that I use traditionally to choose colors. From there I used the colors I had closest to what I wanted and edited them as needed. (I would upload the swatches but as I was working with them I noticed that they were a bit off so I need to go through them and make sure the colors are correct).

Here is the final piece:

And just for you guys who stop by here some other versions (I liked the idea that I could change the tights design, heck even the color should be easy to change):

This one is with out any lightening of some lines from the original drawing-

And one with Sayu using a polkadot design instead of the bunnies-

Here are the references used:

This is the main one I used but I obviously edited her pose and added some different clothes (the one on the bottom) –

And here are the rest (the Usa Chan Peace pose being very important):

And this is the patterned paper I used as the base for background –

I didn’t really focus too much on documenting the process because I just wanted to paint without any distractions and just enjoy the process. Having said that, here are the few I pictures of the process I do have:

Sayu as a brunette:

I’ve gotten quite comfortable just painting it all on one layer, at least with these more realistic pieces. The background I do make another separate piece since I can work much faster that way without having to mess with the main subject. I do want to paint Sayu in a traditional medium, I have some Arches water color paper that I have been wanting to use for a couple of months now so hopefully that will be done soon.

And with that I end this first post of the year. Here’s to hoping we have a great year ahead of us, let’s keep working at it.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Usa Chan Peace! V(⁎˃ᆺ˂)V