"A Hopeless Dream Chaser"
There’s a contest currently going on with Corel. It’s supposed to end today. As soon as I finished with my 2B painting I started working on this one. Aside from using a reference photo for the background I went ahead and painted Nube from memory. The original version was lighter and faded so I went ahead and added a multiply layer to add more color to it. I just started painting and just let it flow.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I’ve recently have been trying to make some time to rest and relax whenever I can, and I have been finally started playing Nier Automata again. While I was doing 9S’s run, there was that comment of having 2B getting a t-shirt sometime in the future. I really like the idea of doing a painting about it. I first started painting the background. It had so many different parts that it took a couple of days. Once I was satisfied I finally started painting 2B. It did take me a while to come up with a skin tone that I felt would fit, then the shirt… but once I got to the face it was quite easy. The hair I made a lot of changes but wasn’t too hard. The tshirt design was a bit tough to come up with. I was tempted to make a shirt with a number of features but then it wouldn’t be a tshirt anymore. So I tried to just come up with a logo. After looking at her uniform I then played around with her design features and made it into a shirt. Comin up with the mall directory was a bit of fun. When I was playing with multiply, I liked the way it looked with darker and more vibrant colors so made two versions. I also played with the blur filter for the directory.
This will be the first painting with my emblem and a signature. I saw a painting of mine get reposted recently but they don’t even give credit which sucks.
2B getting her t-shirt #darkcloudxero #Nier:Automata #2B #tshirt #mall #shorts #ヨルハ2号B型 #CuteGirl #thighs… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…—
(@DarkCloudXERO) February 21, 2020
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
This was painted using the drawing I made for inktober 2019 on day 21. When I first drew this I was imagining fall but it of course wasn’t hard to change it to winter. I actually finished this about a week ago but since Valentines day was getting close I decided to hold on to it. Of course I decided to add the letters to fit in with Valentines day. I did think about adding some chocolate gifts but I think this will do fine this time.
I really like the path the manga decided to take in regards to Komi’s and Manbagi’s relationship. They are both really cute but in very different ways both in looks and personality.
Hope you guys like it:
There are three versions of it, but I still can’t post them here through Pixiv. Here’s some previews from Twitter:
Komi and Manbagi Snow school day #darkcloudxero #万場木留美子 #古見硝子 #古見さんは、コミュ症です。, #こみさんはコミュしょうです。 #snow #winteruniform… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…—
(@DarkCloudXERO) February 13, 2020
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
This was originally drawn for Inktober 2019 on the 8th day.
I really like pretty much everything about Misaki. Her design, personality and story are great. Plus her relationship with Misaka makes for some great stories. I’m really glad they are finally giving her some screen time in the anime. I really like the way they make her life comedic because of the characters and situations she has to deal with. The way Sogiita Gunha stole the spotlight was hilarious and Misakis’ response made it even better.
Of course Misaki just oozes sexiness so I wanted to do a piece emphasizing that.
The whole painting was progressing smoothly, I was quite surprised. The background was done in just a couple of minutes and Misaki just a couple of hours. But the hair was… I need to practice more with blonde hair, it took way too long.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
My brother was telling me about whether I had used FireAlpaca. I actually hadn’t heard about it before. He told me to check it out since it was free and his friend used it so he was wondering what I thought about it.
Just as he said, the program is indeed free. The program it self is lightweight and easy to understand. There are a number of functions that are missing compared to Corel (realistic brushes) and Photoshop (it’s photo editing features) but it also has a number of functions are pretty cool. It has functions to upload directly to Pixiv. One of the things that really surprised me was how fast and responsive it reacts. It opens fast and it paints smoothly. I decided to use their watercolor brush and it reacted pretty closely to the oil brush from Corel Painter which I loved. I was planning to just paint a quick test but it eventually led to actually finishing the painting (I just couldn’t stop once it begin to take form).
Conclusion about the program (as of now), there are some features I miss from Corel and Photoshop but it is a solid program that people should get. Especially if what you are looking for is a free art program. Give it a try.
I’ve been wanting to make a painting using the 80s references I have been archiving for quite a while now. So I used this as an excuse to give it a try. As mentioned above, it was just going to be a quick rough draft to try the program but ended up finishing it. Seiko came out really cute, I really like the the washed out colors used and the way her expression came out.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
This is a colored version of the 9th inktober piece I drew in 2019. I wasn’t too sure what the coloring style would be, but it eventually evolved into this one.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I was looking into Clip Studio after I saw a video showcasing the ability to have the program auto color one’s line art. And what made it cool was that not only did it seem to work great but one can have a say on the colors used as well. I couldn’t try it out since the trial version doesn’t make it accessible. But there is a website that does the same thing named PaintsChainer so I played around with that for a bit. While I was reading more about Clip Studio I happened to hear about another program that was open source and free named Krita. I have heard of this program before (quite a while ago) but never gave it a chance. So I decided to finally give it a chance. I’m amazed at the amount of tools and options it has. It really does seem to offer (at least from what I have tried so far) everything most pro programs offer.
One other reason I was interested in using Krita is because Photoshop seems to make my tablet drivers quite after working on it for a while, and the only way to make them work again is to restart my pc. What sucks is that sometimes I only make a couple of strokes and the drivers quit on me. This makes working digitally really annoying, time consuming and messes with my work rhythm. Now to be fair I did have too many open tabs on chrome so I’m sure that was causing my pc to use too much memory causing problems.
In any case I’m glad this all culminated in me trying out this program because it’s quite amazing. It has many pen options and works quite well. Most things work like in any other painting program so making the change isn’t hard. I really like the g-pen to draw. One thing I’ve never tried was using the pen pressure to dictate the opacity. I’ts actually quite amazing and intuitive. I think I might prefer using the pen pressure in this way instead of controlling the size of the brush while painting. It gives me a feel that reminds me of how watercolor works.
I’m still not used to the way to color selector works, I prefer the one from Corel and Photoshop (the Coolorus addon one).
As for the drawing it self I wasn’t too sure what to draw so I just began doodling until at some point I decided to draw Sayu. This time though I just wanted to see what would come up if I just did things from memory and imagination. After doing the line art I decided to try out painting with the program and am quite surprised and pleased at how great it feels and works. I highly recommend it specially since it’s free. I’ll see how far I can push the program in some future works. Hopefully my tablet drivers will finally stop crashing as well so I can just draw and paint at my pace without disturbances.
The 1st drawing/painting:
The process:
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I started working on this piece right after Christmas and leading up to New Years. But I knew I wouldn’t have been able to finish it so I decided to stop on the 31st so that I could restart after New Years. It took me a couple of days but not as long as I thought it would. This time I wanted to try and emulate the painting style of the original anime. I did try to use the colors from the anime itself but found out that the values and colors didn’t work together so I did have to account for that and adjust accordingly. This process was a real pain in the … before but I have gotten quite used to it. I think I’m starting to understand color a lot more now. I was really worried because color seemed like such a hard concept for me (it still is) but by brute forcing myself to understanding it. I did this by painting and painting even if I didn’t know why something worked… even though there were so many failures that really made me feel inadequate… all the effort is finally starting to show the progress.
The line work itself did give me a couple of headaches since I couldn’t figure out how dark or translucent it should be so I did have to fiddle with that a good number of times. The artwork looked fine to me but I felt that making it a bit blurrier(?) or having it have a layer of light pollution(?) would make it look more like how I remember watching the anime. sometimes having that grain in the quality of the anime gives it more character and look more appealing (but the more I think about it the more it sounds like nostalgia talking huh?).
Anyway I wanted Goku to be in Mexico for this year eating traditional Mexican foods that some of us would eat during this time of the year. So I had him eating tamales, tacos, elotes, and buñuelos. Thinking back I should have given Goku a bigger table and also add some chocolate abuelita (a brand of Mexican hot chocolate) or something. I also was envisioning some fireworks in the background but since I finished this after new years I decided against it. The cathedral in the background is based on one in Durango, Mexico.
Here is the piece (I decided to have two versions):
Tv quality –
HD quality –
here are the references:
and here is the process:
I had fun working on it, though I wonder how long it would take me to do it traditionally and if it would look better?
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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
Man, I started this piece a long time ago. I figure it was about time I went ahead and finished it now that I have a bit more time to work. I had a different version made during the summer but I was not satisfied. Not only did I decide to edit Fubuki herself but opted to redo the whole background. It took around three, five separate attempts over a couple of months till I was finally able to finish. I felt a lot more confident in my technique and color selection. Hopefully this means I will be able to create more paintings at a faster pace. I also noticed I knew a lot more shortcuts and time management techniques which allowed me to keep a steady workflow. As for whether the painting actually looks good I don’t know. I’ve been working on it for a bit so it’s hard to know.
Any way this piece was based on the chapter covers of One Punch Man where Fubuki is drawn like in a CD cover (this sentence is written weirdly).
The paintings:
references used:
Can’t find the chapter art covers I mentioned, if I do find them I will update this post.
Man that was long…
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I want to try out different styles, the quickest way is to do it digitally since I can redo every line and color as many times as I want.
It was a bit hard trying to contain my self and use simple color schemes, I just felt I could add more but it’s important to try and learn how and why these simplistic coloring styles work and hopefully will be able to create better works in the future. I was going for a 90s style.
reference used:
A more realist anime style:
Slightly more anime style:
Full anime:
That’s it for now.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
So there have been some changes to Flickr and it seems like they will limit the amount of photos one can have in one’s account for free to 1,000. And I had almost 2,000. So I had the option to either delete some photos my self or have Flickr delete the first 1,000 photos. So some posts will have photos missing as of now. If you guys want any of the missing photos from those old post let me know and I will go back and fix them.
Because of that I had to find another site that I could use and that would not have a size limitation. I thought I got lucky and would be able to use Google photos but it seems like WordPress would have to download the photos and it would count towards my storage space so that wouldn’t solve the problem…
So I looked at the sites that would allow me to embed photos here easily and would not have a size limit. Begrudgingly it seems like I will have to use Facebook. A site I’m not too fond of… But I need it so I guess I will have to revive the old DarkCloud XERO Facebook page.
With that said and out of the way here is the new piece. I actually finished this on November 3rd. but decided to hold it off so I can space my artwork during the week. This piece is based from the previews that Sayumi has been posting on her Instagram for her new single “Loneliness Tokyo”. I took a screenshot and used that as a reference.
This is the painting:
Reference used:
It seems like I can post the whole gallery in one click so that’s cool. But it seems like to view it, it will take you to Facebook so I hope that won’t be a problem for you guys.:
I quite enjoyed making this painting. I started working on it on October 8th but had to wait till I finished Inktober. When I did come back to it I was surprised by how much easier it felt to paint her compared to when I first started a month before.
Congratulations on the new single Sayu! ₊·(ϱ॔⌄ᵕ๑॓)‧*
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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