After thinking all this year and trying to learn a much as I can about colors, it was now time to actually put it into action. The best way to learn is to learn from others. So that is what I am currently doing right now. One of the things I really want to be able to do is realistic paintings. This requires a good understanding of applying paints and mixing colors. I’ve mainly been watching three youtubers;

The Mind of Watercolor

This channel is great because he teaches a lot of tehnical techniques and explains them in great clarity. On top of that he is very fun to listen to and his videos are very entertaining.

Lioba Brückner

This artist has a very beautiful style that I really want to learn. I’ve been watching her videos and learned quite a lot.

Laovaan 

Actually saw his videos first, and through his videos I found the two channels above on the reccomended list on the side of youtube.

Anyway, years ago after I graduated from high school I bought some photobooks of Platinum Era Morning Musume with the idea of one day being good enough to paint them. Well, after taking a year (this year) to learn I felt it was finally time to give it a try. I was actually a bit aprehensive to start. Heck, I would even say I was actually a bit scared? But it is finally time to make my art finally grow and gain more experience.

One other thing I want to learn is dealing with dark colors, so I chose this photo (the one on the bottom):

Maybe it was a bit reckless of me to choose one with three people instead of just one, but I wish to be able to do a background and deal with multiple focal points. One problem with my artwork is that I have been adding too much details to areas that are not the focal point. The problem with doing that is that one, the focal point is not clear, but more importantly, it just doesn’t look good. When I finally figured that out, I decided to pay attention to what I see and really think about what can bee seen on the sides of the focal point. What I mean is that I look at an object (whatever it is) and try to pay attention to the surroundings and learn just how much detail I am actually able to see when I focus on one point. Turns out, not much. I can see the outlines and main figures, but not any really fine details. So I’ll have to keep that in mind from now on.

Using photos as references can also be problematic since they can see things very differently than a human. So in that sense I will have to choose what requires details and what doesn’t. And then I have to learn just how much details are enough to convey the athmosphere while making it all meld well together.

I was also afraid of using the colors I saw because I had never used them before. Such as when I see yellows, pinks, browns, reds and blues etc (on skin colors). I tend to go with very generic colors instead due to my inexperience and fear of ruining what I have at that certain point. That in turn makes very flat artwork that doesn’t really exist in a realistic sense. It may look good with anime/manga characters but once I apply such colors to real life people, it just doesn’t look right.

One other thing to mention is that due to that fear I also end up making very muddled artwork that just ends up looking dirty. Copic Markers are great, but they do have their limitations and one has to know them otherwise one can mix colors that don’t combine well or one can also over work the colors to the point that they make very dirty colors. This of course does no good to the final picture. One good example of this is the Macross artwork I did a while back;

When you are working with something that requires alot of concentration, detail, colors and experience. It is easy to understand if one messes it up. For one I am assuming the colors and ignoring the ones I see in the actual reference pictures (as can be seen here);

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36830534054/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36830533774/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36830532954/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37492201346/in/dateposted-public/

After learning what not to do, I decided to actually give it a try and paint what I see instead what I think it should be.

With all that said this is the finished piece:

And here is the process of how I drew and painted this new piece.

Let’s talk about the broken Camera.

Before I started recording this watercolor piece I had dropped my camera which sadly cracked my lens. That is noticeable on the first videos I recorded. So I had two options, buy a new camera or try and fix it. Hopoing I had not damaged the  sensor I ordered a replecement lens. It took a while to arrive, so half of my recordings have that crack. When it arrived I was debating whether I should finish painting this piece first or if I should fix it before continuing. One concern was that if I messed it up and couldn’t fix it, I could very well end up with the camera in even worse condition.

After some thought I just decided to go for it. And that took a bit of time to get done, but since I have some experience from fixing some of my other electronics it didn’t take long for me to figure it out. It did take me three times to hook up the ribbon cables (which gave me problems that of course freaked me out a bit). Luckily it was all working well when I properly hooked them up and the rest of the videos did not have that crack.

As for the paints.

I decided to use some of the money I made from NanDesuKan and buy some paints that I have been interested for a couple of years. (I’ll talk a bit more on some of these things later.) Those paints are Nicker Poster Color. The way they can cover a whole area completely opaque but can also be thinned out really caught my attention. And the idea that I can paint on top of what I have already painted while still being completly opaque. I still haven’t tried them out yet, but if they work like I think they do it will be my dream medium.

Plans.

Fall is here, and October is here. So that means that I should make the effort to make some pieces with those themes. Since I am in October, I should make some Halloween themed paintings. I actually have one that is already drawn out since last year. I was planning on finishing it for last years Halloween, but decided to learn how to use colors first then come back to it so that I could do a much better job. Of course I could wait to get better, but I feel this could be a good learning experience now that I know a bit more. Hopefully I won’t mess it up, but I have to not be afraid to try new painting techniques.

Aside from that I do want to make maybe two more new ones. I just haven’t decided what character to choose or any ideas of what to do.

But those are my plans, I will have a midterm soon so I hope I won’t hit a snag.

That’s it for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-Nube