It’s about to get even colder where I live so I wanted to paint something to reflect that. Looking at some references I remembered a painting I made back in 2021 that I wanted to eventually get back to and give it another try. So I decided to RE:do my Airi painting of her in a jacket. I also decided to try out a couple of new brushes aside from the sargent brush. I’m glad I did so because some of them fought me less when I was spreading paint and mixing. My plan is to continue practicing until I understand them better. This time around I was also more confident in giving her mitts a try.
I saw this beautiful photo of a lantern lighting up a tree and snow that I wanted to try and paint. Perhaps in the future I might use it as a background but who knows.
Vegas kept crashing on me so I decided to change to Adobe Premiere. Now I have to learn how it all works but at the very least I can do most of the basic functions. Although I had to learn what I needed looking online. Things are not as intuitive as Vegas but oh well, I’ll learn. This is just a really quick speed paint. I’ll work on the new format for future paintings. I’ll upload Fubuki and Tatsumaki’s speed paint as soon as it’s done rendering.
Back in 2020 I made a piece of Marisa in a Christmas outfit, but it was really rough and I was still using my developing painting style along with my line art which don’t work well together at all. For that reason I believe it would be a good candidate to RE:do with my current skills. Overall I love the new version a whole lot more. I did make some changes to her expression, but I feel that it all still gives the same cool yet cozy Christmas feeling.
Here is the old version:
I recorded the process, should I just make a speed paint video of it? I’ve been quite busy and will probably continue to be so for a while. This means that I probably wont be able to start making the new format for a while. Since Christmas is fast approaching and it would be weird to upload the video a year later why not just upload something now?
If time permits, I will try to make another painting for Christmas. We’ll see.
I had to modify some of the lineart but for the most part it all worked out. I know the anime uses blue hair, but I quite like the more purple hue she has in the manga illustrations. the outfit and colors I got from a figure of Rin on her Yamaha Vino. It really helped out a lot.
It surprisingly didn’t take me too long to paint Shining Gundam and Domon, along with their reflections and snow. Checking mountains in parts of Japan, there are actually quite a lot of types of shapes. Including the pointy ones that are common where I’m currently at. So I just modified them a bit.
Shining Gundam was the main focus and what took the longest for this segment of the painting. The main form and base colors were easy to choose From there I tried to make out the form to showcase the most prominent forms. But since I wanted to emphasize that the Gundam is far away, I made sure to use more muted colors and as little value changes as I thought were needed. Then came the snow. I felt a bit bad about covering some areas with snow and water, but I feel that really ties it all together. As for the reflections I used the same techniques as with the torii, but I made sure to add highlights to create waves moving away from Shining Gundam as it rises up.
There were a couple of ideas about where to place Domon. Walking in the frozen ground, atop a small boat or standing on the torii. But ultimately I came upon the idea to have him leaping towards it. This I feel really fits the fantastical elements of G Gundam after all.
I made two versions, one where it’s all quiet and peaceful and another where snow is falling. Although I do like the snow, I think it looks better where it isn’t present.
I’m currently working on a new painting before I try to make one or two for Valentines. I’ve actually been planning to make a painting of this sort for… damn. A couple of years now. I’m surprised it took me this long to finally give it a shot. The background is mostly done. I’m actually quite a bit ahead of this but I quite like the atmosphere of where the painting is at this point. Although I can render the painting further, I wonder if that will detract from the focal subjects. So for now, I will leave it mostly as it is.
This is the reference photo of the background, modified to have snow of course:
I just did an image search to find the original creator and it seems to be from a photo manipulator that put different assets together to create this. I found it strange that the pine trees and mountains looked somewhat Western. Now I know why.
With that in mind, I will go back and edit a couple of the trees so that they fit Japanese ones. Among other changes. I wonder if there is a place in Japan that will actually fit this scenery?
The Toori is actually painted already, along with the reflection. I’m surprised at how easy it was to emulate. You guys will have to wait till next time to be the judges though. Luckily I won’t have to edit that part of the painting.
Despite the end of last year being quite dry, the start of this year has given us quite a bit of snow. I quite like the athmosphere this creates which is why I decided to use it for the painting this time around. The line art was done for Inktober 2021 day 27 which can be seen here:
The model for this painting is Sayumi Michishige. I really love the outfit and colors. I debated on how I wanted Sayu’s colors to be overall. Light and faded, or darker, affected by the scenery. I opted for the darker route.
Reference photo of Sayu can be seen here (7th Photo):
It was also a bonus that her hairstyle was specially cut for her end of the year °C-ute concert. I was just about finished yesterday painting Airi when my brother walked in and asked when I would make a painting that took longer. I was wondering if he meant that I was rushing through this painting and was leaving it too rough. But it seems he just meant that lately I have only been doing line art which takes only a couple of hours (Airi as well). That’s when I decided to add a background. Using the wall background would not do so I decided to make a winter scenery. I ended up mashing up a couple of reference photos (including some from Airi’s photobooks). It looks like the road crossing the train tracks is heading straight to the sea huh? I guess the idea is that there is a ramp for people to drive towards the beach.
I was a bit apprehensive about the details in the sweater when I was just about to start, but luckily with my current experience I know that it’s just a matter of painting and now stopping. Once that flow starts, it doesn’t take that long to finish. Once I added the background, I did have to tweak the saturation and values on Airi though.
Today’s Pixiv theme was earphones, I wanted to make a winter painting. So I combined both ideas. The subject is Yuri Tamura. She is often seen wearing her earbuds so I felt this was a great fit. Although I can’t really tell since the manga is black and white, but her earbuds are most likely white huh? I felt black would fit better in this painting though. I wasted more time coming up with the concept than actually painting it feels like.
I added some snow to the platform but that’s probably cleaned up properly before it get’s piled up in big cities right? Oh well, let’s just call it artistic liberty.
Just when I was about to finish most of the painting I decided to add Yuri’s hand holding one of her earbuds. I think it adds more to the scene. One other thing to note is that when I do full digital paintings I feel they look good without outlines, but when I add them in they look better somehow. I’ll have to keep experimenting with this.
Somehow I managed to finish it on time. This is the first drawing of the year. I decided to risk it and rest a bit after work yesterday and start the first drawing/painting of the year on the very first day of the year. Usually I start a day before and finish it on the second. I wasn’t too sure what the subject would be until I noticed that people were posting tiger themed photos on instagram. The tiger is my favorite animal so this actually made ideas flow much easier.
I had the idea of riding the tiger but felt that was a bit cruel. Then I had the idea of the tiger kinda hugging me like my dog does (well except he hugs from the front) and this concept was born. I drew it first without reference to come up with the pose and whatnot. I wanted a hopeful and determined theme, with the strength of the tiger behind our backs. Or something like that. As for the background I wanted to emphasize the winter weather and used a photo that I took years ago of a street where the mountains could be seen with a beautiful sunset.
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