Happy Birthday Airi!
I really love her solo music, I’m so glad others agree and her popularity has been increasing.
I’m quite late doing this painting but I have been quite busy lately. I also didn’t want to do a subpar painting either. I used references of her birthday pictures (from her instagram) for this painting. Her photos are always so fun. Surprisingly the balloons were not hard to paint at all. It was Airi that I felt I couldn’t get right.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I’m really loving what they are doing with the anime adaptation. Its so beautifully designed and has a lot of attention to detail when animating movements. Episode 3 made a really good job of showcasing the struggle of artist dealing with deadlines and encountering a wall (in terms of one’s current skill level). I feel that whoever is directing this anime is of course putting a lot of emphasis on the fan service aspects but also to a lot of emotional moments and the artistic aspects that comes from cosplaying and doll making. I really do feel that there is a lot of love and care put in this project.
This painting is dealing with Gojou’s comment on Marin’s beauty. The animation sequence and facial expressions were really impactful. So of course I wanted to make a painting of this moment. I really like Gojou. Most protagonists in these types of stories are a little too annoying for me. But even though Gojou has a bit of social deficiencies, he is still portrayed as what a normal person would be. That assertiveness and confidence when it comes to his craft is also quite refreshing. That’s why I believe Marin falling for Gojou is a lot more believable than other series where the protagonist has the most beautiful girl falling for him for no reason. If you haven’t given this series a try, I really recommend it. The anime is a really great addition that actually amplifies the series.
For this painting I first painted the background then Goujou and Marin. Then I added some lighting. Although it I felt it looked good, after playing around with the layers on one of the lighting layers I came upon the realization of editing the values and saturation of Marin and Goujou. The more vibrant colors I felt looked much better than the colors I had before. The background was also edited slightly to fit better with the changes. Now it looks so warm and cozy…
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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
I started this painting back on Saturday and worked a bit on it Sunday morning but for some reason felt like I wasn’t making much progress. It started to become a slugfest, so I decided to take the rest of Sunday off and not work on it on Monday. I felt a bit guilty but when I continued working on it today I definitely felt more refreshed and the wall I was fighting before was suddenly non existent. Although the background and the poses were mostly left finished on Sunday, there was still quite a bit of work to do figuring out how I wanted the colors for Ranma and Akane. But once I got the base colors done, the work just flowed after that. It was just a matter of working and tweaking things. I’m trying to render things a bit more so that they don’t look too rough. I’m also gonna play around with the line art digitally. Doing so I can get a my style that I’m currently developing and traditional anime working together. Judging by how things tend to work out, I’ll be adjusting and hopefully refining it as I go along.
Background is a mismatch of different ideas and photos but the ice was from a photo I took a while ago:
The idea for this painting was mainly jus to have Akane skating when I saw this photo of Yū Hayami (I of course used the opportunity to change the K to an A):
But I felt like Akane would look too lonely so I added Ranma. I remembered that he had trouble skating in the first seasons (did he ever learn?) so I wanted to paint him struggling. That’s how I came upon this pose reference (Can’t find info on the model for some reason):
Ranma’s outfit:
I was pretty much done when I suddenly by the end felt it would look even better if I had Ryoga in his boar form jumping off of Ranma. Then I noticed that Akane looked too stiff so I decided to have her hair flutter as if she was in movement.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Happy New Year!
Feliz Año Nuevo!
あけましておめでとう!
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.
Let’s do our best this year!
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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
This is the painted version of the drawing I made for Inktober 2021 day 04. I still wonder if I should have changed Chizuru’s expression to that of a more serious one. But surely she has fun playing around with Iori and Kyo.
Line art can be seen here:
Hasta la proxima,
-Nube
Looking back at the original upload, it looks really washed out compared to this version.
Original version:
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I recently talked about how my monitors were not calibrated correctly so my colors and values were off. I’m going back and trying to fix some of the previous paintings I have done. Miyabi dressed as a maid is of course one of those paintings.
Previous version:
Hasta la proxima,
-Nube
A redo of painting I did back in March 2020. I only did a couple of touch ups of the background and changed some of the lighting and color. The main changes were made to Terry in terms of the values and hues. The main part I mainly spent repainting were his arms.
First version can be seen here:
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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