Ski Pose Momochi Inked

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.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Ski Smile Momochi Watercolor

I finally finished making my new lightbox so I can now transfer line art as many times as I want so that I can practice more traditional styles.

Since I want to use my lightbox but don’t like having to move everything over and over again, I think it’s time that I finally make the lightbox that will fit in the desk opening. For that, I will scavenge the light and parts of my old lightbox. It took me a couple of hours but it was worth it.

This painting was done using my Holbein Watercolors. I like that I can play around with the opaqueness and vibrancy of the colors. But it’s obvious that I need to practice more. As I was painting I noticed that Momochi’s left (to our right) eye was misaligned. So when I was done painting I modified it digitally. I was going to leave the background blank but decided to add some blue brush strokes to emphasize the cold temperatures.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Ski Smile Momochi pencil Line Art

For this drawing I used a watercolor paper. There is an artist that I watch on Youtube named Alpay Efe:

https://www.youtube.com/c/AlpayEfe

I want to try using the brushstrokes and colors that Alpay uses. They are amazing. But I also want to do ink drawings… Meaning that it would be a great if I transferred my line art to another paper. This calls for the use of a lightbox.

So I have a lightbox I built quite a while ago, but it takes a lot of space. It no longer works with my current setup. But, the desk I built has a place left open so that I would slide in a lightbox but I never built it. I think it might be time I scavenge the lights and built a smaller version that can dock into my desk.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Skiing Momochi pencil line art

Time was limited today so I drew a quick sketch. It has been snowing pretty consistently lately where I live, so I want to make more snow based artworks before we move into the spring season. This time I wanted to draw Momochi skiing from her time in Country Girls. She was really in her element it seemed when she was doing it in the DVD Magazine vol. 2. I wonder if she went skiing often?

I’m not sure what I will do with this line art. I could shade it with pencil, transfer it to another paper and paint it with watercolor or paint it digitally. We’ll see.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Airi Sweater

There was this photo recently uploaded by Airi Suzuki wearing a comfy looking brown sweater that I just had to draw/paint.

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.

I kinda wanna animate this painitng…

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

2022 Miyabi Line art

There’s this artist named Criisalys that I really like. I’ve seen the art a while ago being used by Macross 82-99. I’m surprised it took me this long to find the actual artists Twitter and Instagram. It can be found here:

I want to try out this style. The model for this will be the beautiful Miyabi Natsuyaki. There are always great reference photos to choose from, but ended up going with this one:

I really like this look, it’s very Aesthetic and would fit with the coloring style I’m trying to emulate.

One other notable thing to mention has to do with my new Xp-Pen tablet/monitor. So I have a set up of multiple monitors and have now added monitor profiles to switch some of them off. This has the added effect though that some of my windows get scrambled, including what monitor is selected for my Xp-Pen. But I noticed that I could move the cursor on other monitors. Today I decided to try it out and it works great (I was cleaning up the drawing). There doesn’t seem to be pressure though… but for simple and quick fixes/painting this works out great.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Santa Airi 2021

Airi recently released some photos of her as a Santa that I found both cute and fun, so I had the idea of making a painting using that idea.

I’ve been working on this painting for a couple of days now. I first drew the line art with a combination of my brush and my g pen for Airi’s base body, not including her clothes. I did this because I feel I make clothes look to stiff with the pen. For the background I used a lighter mixture of my ink while Airi herself was inked using a more concentrated ink mixture.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been playing around with the shortcut keys I feel I need most to make paintings more efficiently. I’m really glad I did because it made the painting process flow much smoother. The painting was much brighter but I feel this darker amber atmosphere fits the scene a whole lot better.

Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy Holidays! I think I’m going to take a three day break and just chill for a while. Hope you guys have a great time.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Athena Asamiya Idol V2

The original version was uploaded back in November 2020, but I feel that it was lacking. I now feel a bit more confident to go back to it and update it with my current skills. Not only did I change some colors but I changed the sleeves and chest area. The background was also touched up. The right eye (what appears to us as the left eye) was drawn too far down the face so Athena looked a bit deformed. Aside from that, I also changed the gaze so it appeared that she was looking at us. I should seriously actually render paintings more, I’ve been leaving them too rough.

Original can be seen here:

Aside from seeing the original piece, you can learn what inspired me for this particular painting.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Karin Miyamoto’s Birthday 2021

By pure luck I managed to see Karin’s Instagram live celebrating her 23rd birthday. It’s funny that at the end she messed up the finger positions and was accidently showing 32. I debated making two more pieces showcasing this but I ran out of time. I wonder why the videos get mirrored? I’ve noticed that many photos and videos are in this format.

Happy birthday Karin!

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

‘Soft’ Airi Suzuki

Based on the drawing I made for this year’s Inktober for day 23. Because watercolor lifts the ink and makes the drawing really muddy, I traced it with my lightbox using only my pencil. I actually had to redo it twice because I was trying to erase the lines and graphite smudges before I started painting but then I couldn’t see the lines anymore… Erasing is ok on some papers, but not on the one I was using this time…

Luckily I still managed to finish the painting today despite a couple of setbacks. One of the biggest ones was the fear of messing up. It’s been a while since I last painted traditionally so that’s always a bit intimidating. But it’s always a matter of just starting. I almost messed it up right out of the gate since I didn’t completely clean the main brush I used (it still had some ink in it). The good things was that I could still lift up the affected area (it was the face…).

I really love watercolors. The look it has and versatility are just amazing.

reference used:

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

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