Finally, we are in the tail end of the summer, there’s only three more days before we finally enter the fall season! Heck yeah! I like this outfit that Momochi used in her “Off Momochi in Okinawa” blu ray. I think it really fits the lowering temps. I made two versions, a more realistic version and an anime version where I simplified certain aspects of the face and enlarging the eyes. Using outlines helps make people pop out, but I wanted to see if I could make it look good without them.
I’ve had these inked and hatched Momochi drawings waiting for over a month, it is now time to finally upload them. Working with the line art, I also wanted the line art and inking to compliment each other. Somehow, less facial features works better. Once the details get too close to realism, certain facial features have to be drawn in a more realistic way otherwise it can make the face look off. I think playing with the line thicknesses can either help or hurt as well. I’ll have to experiment more to find out what works at certain times and what doesn’t.
Luckily there’s plenty of Momochi drawings I want to draw so I can practice more.
I just got Corel Painter 2023 and this is my first painting using the updated program. I’ve gotta say, it feels a lot smoother and my favorite brush (Sergeant brush) now has a version that has blending abilities. And I’m not even using the full capabilities of it. It seems like I can also make my own brushes so hopefully I can play around with that at some point.
To commemorate and try out this new version I tried out painting this night fireside scene from Momochi’s “Hatachi Momochi” making of DVD. I really like the colors and expressions that Momochi did during this photoshoot scene and wanted to try and paint it. But I wasn’t too confident a while back so I didn’t do it till now. There’s more scenes in this location that I want to give a try at some point. While Painting I wanted to also paint different paint expressions which led me to the idea of making a simple animation, having moving waves and a flickering fire along with Momochi’s changing expressions. I really enjoyed working on this piece.
There are so many drawings of Momochi that I want to give a try. This waitress outfit is hella cute.
Currently I can only use my surface pro to create art. This will be a perfect test to see what flexibility it can give me. I love that I can use my fingers to resize and can tilt the whole tablet to change the orientation of the workspace physically so that I have a more intuitive experience when drawing and painting. It’s giving me flashbacks to when I was a kid and used to draw with a clipboard. The only problem is that I don’t have express keys, I’ll have to see if I can add them digitally otherwise I will buy an express keys controller.
Took me about three weeks… but I finally have the first pass of animating my drawing of Momochi in her “Ai no Dangan” outfit. There are a couple of things I need to still edit, I also feel that making it twice as fast will help. Then there is the whole stretching and compressing when Momochi moves to make it more dynamic. There’s still so much I have to learn.
I’ve had the idea of drawing a piece in different styles. After telling myself that I finally did it. It’s amazing how a couple of details can change the whole drawing. This is a good exercise to increase my skills and develop my style.
It took almost a year, but Momochi’s Ai no Dangan drawing has been painted. I wasn’t planning on making a background but as I was working I wanted to play around with some filters and learned I could recreate a screen panel so I played around with two versions of it. At some point though I might do something else with the background.
I made the love bullet first but felt it was a bit lonely. I then played around with an aura around it which I feel fits. It also reminds me of the Spirit Gun from YuYu Hakusho.
Momochi is the first painting on my new clean install. I started with the sergeant brush which was a bit rough (looking). When I painted Momochi it became obvious that it definitely didn’t fit well together. So I used the tapered oil to soften the edges and blend things together a bit. This also helped give the feeling of distance. Momochi’s outfit was a bit tough at the beginning since I had to come up with different shades of white for each piece of clothing. Then there are slight shades of blue and greens that interact with the reflections and shadows from the snow. I left the face and hair for the end. With the surrounding colors finally figured out, working for these last colors was much more straight forward.
In computer news. So far so good, while painting I encountered no problems what so ever. So I should be able to just paint without any problems from now on.
The day almost passed but I somehow made it. Happy Birthday Momochi! I really hope you’re doing great. Although I know you followed your dream, I still selfishly wish you were active. I’m so glad you were really active back in the day because luckily you appeared in a lot of media.
It’s no secret that I love drawing Momochi. Drawing her has been a great source of inspiration in my art journey. Here’s to more in the coming years.
The outfit is from her photobook, the references I used were from the Digital Hello Project Photobooks vol. 98. I liked her pose and smile from different photos, so I used them to create this drawing (along with others that showcase more of the outfit). This is still a work in progress. I’m probably going to paint it digitally (now that I can finally do it).
After finishing the last Buono painting, my computer decided to blue screen uncontrollably. I encountered some of that while painting but the computer was unusable after I finished luckily. It took me four clean installs until I finally managed to fix it this morning. Good thing I have all my data in separate drives just for these occasions. Seems like my scratch disk was the one causing the problem (first time I have ever seen that happen). As soon as I replaced it, the problems ceased. Now everything is working correctly.
I really miss Buono! I’m so glad they have so many recorded media of their activities. What’s great is that there are a lot of new fans appearing. Their legacy continues to grow!
This painting took me longer than I thought it would but I’m finally finished. I went with an 80s anime style. I started with the background and then started painting from left to right. The line art was overlaid digitally then set to multiply. The base colors went in first then I started adding the leopard, polka dots and star designs, etc. I then created a separate layer where I multiplied the shadow layers. Then above all the layers for each member I created a new one for the lighting. To keep with the anime aesthetic I chose the typical anime hair colors so that they popped more. For their eyes, I chose their member colors.
As I was working on this painting I got reminded that Berryz Koubou’s 18th debut anniversary was on March 3rd. Sadly I wasn’t able to do a piece to commemorate it though. I still wan to make one though. I have an idea for one, but maybe I should save that one for their 20th anniversary. Or maybe I should just make that one, we’ll see.
A great intro to Buono! is Hatsukoi Cider. Check it out here (Their official video has over 5 million views!):
Didn’t have the time to finish it today but at least the line art is ready. I was thinking about uploading an inked version but this refined pencil line art will do for now. I saw the prompt for idols and of course I had to draw something for it. There are many options but I decided to go with BUONO! The formation of Momoko, Miyabi and Airi was just magical.
For the Momochi Pose line art I decided to ink it and hatch it.
Yesterday I went to Meow Wolf. Inside was an art display by Future Fantasy Delight. The black and white art really popped and looked amazing. It was obvious that the artist had a lot of inspiration of anime/manga and Mexican culture (such as with the Mijo Miho character). I really need to make more black and white drawings.
There were a couple of areas that I did have to edit digitally and other areas that I had to clean up. Cheap Paper is cool to practice with, but I should seriously stop using it with my dip pens. The sharp tips lift up a lot of of the paper fibers. The areas that I inked were done using a brush. One thing I don’t like when I scan my artwork is that the light from the scanner exaggerates the dimples/texture in the paper. To the point where it creates blank spots. This happens as well with watercolors. I wonder if this is why some artists prefer to photograph instead of scan.
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