ghost girl – Darkcloud Xero's Online Shop

I was hoping to do a bit more artwork for the seasons, that way I had a bit more to aim for and to just get into the spirit of the holidays around the year (I feel that if I continue not to do so the years will just continue to feel monotonous and boring). I might do another quick one for Halloween before the actual day. Though Dia de los Muertos is also approaching…

It’ll be fine…

I guess that midterm and the extra work that piled up really did a number. But that’s life I guess.

I want to be able to meld reality and anime a bit more, so I want to play around with that a bit more. And this is one of the paintings where I am giving that a shot.

I am wondering if the way I do watercolor paintings look good to others or If I should make them look smoother so that the grain of the paper isn’t as noticeable. I can do that a bit more if I use color pencils to go over the watercolors I already put in. I have used this technique before, but I want to get better with just watercolors first so that I don’t just rely on color pencils to fix my inexperience. Once I get better I will try to combine them again, but hopefully this time correctly.

In any case this is the painting in question:

There’s something about the character design of the ghost girl from Pokemon X/Y that I really like. So that is the theme for this year’s halloween painting. I was also looking forward ot seeing if I could make her zig-zag mouth look like it could belong to our world (what do you guys think?).

The painting itself is largely inspired by this picture I used as reference:

Cosplayer: Cherry Neko

One other thing I really wanted to try out was seeing if I could choose the right color schemes despite the reference pictures having different colors. As I’ve mentioned before color is still something I’m struggling with. So this was designed to be a good challenge for me to play around with that. I’m still relying on references but I will learn faster this way, and I will have a better understanding of how colors work as well.

I’m starting to get the hang of watercolors a lot more, to the point that I’m no longer afraid to try new techniques and push ones I’ve used before further. I still get a bit frustated when the sessions go for too long and I can’t quite get it right, but that’s fine (nothing a little rest can’t fix).

Strangely enough I actually drew this picture various times (four times) and colored it twice. Once with Copic markers and the second one with watercolors which is the one you see above.

Here is the original sketch/drawing:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37997922582/in/dateposted-public/

Here is the Copic version done with one of said four drawings:

The copic version exists because I wanted to first try out the color schemes that I thought would work. I did this because I didn’t want to use too much time painting only for it to come out wrong. And since Copics are faster to use and dry almost instantly it was a perfect medium to try out the colors. I was almost thinking of just using the Copic version as the final piece, but then I ran out of a couple of colors and buying replacements would be too costly so I just decided to start all over with watercolors. In other words I made this piece twice which is one of the reasons I haven’t posted in a while. But I’m finally done.

For those that are interested here is the process:

From this angle it look like a good start, but I would later learn that I had made quite a couple of mistakes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975118286/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/26252727129/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975115126/in/dateposted-public/

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/24176567568/in/dateposted-public/

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/26252707219/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975090236/in/dateposted-public/

Thinking I was pretty close to the end I noticed that the proportions were quite off. The head was much too big for the body, the shoulders were too small and so were the hips.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/38029011271/in/dateposted-public/

On top of that, after taking a break from painting when I came back I decided I needed to make even more changes to it.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975444346/in/dateposted-public/

And this was the final version I decided to go with:

Well that’s it for today. Hopefully I can get another piece out before Halloween (though it will be simple if it is).

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

So I have finally finished the Pokemon Ghost Girl artwork. I was going to do it fully out of watercolors, but I decided to instead touch it up with my Copics which made it pop out even more and gave it a cleaner look. I have tried this before, but I think I have now finally started to get the hang of it so that they can blend seamlessly. Before I had to use so much of my Copic ink since I was still unsure of what I could do so that the colors didn’t look too washed up. Of course this also has to do with me using better watercolors (kuretake gansai tambi). With these I can make the colors do exactly what I want. They are still not as vibrant as the Copics so I do have to rely on them when doing dark backgrounds. But they are great when doing light ones.

For this drawing I decided to do another Halloween themed drawing. Although this is not tied down by it. It should fit at any time of the year since it’s just spooky and it has to do with Pokemon. At the beggining of the year I decided to do a drawing somewhat like this (just as stated in the post before this one). But seeing as I can do both characters I decided to make them two different art pieces. When thinking about the Pokemon Ghost Girl, I started thinking of what importance she would have for the future Pokemon game/s. Seeing as though she is looking for a certain person. I decided to focus on that. I had her in a room as if waiting for someone. And to make it fit a spooky atmosphere I decided to add ghost Pokemon. To not use up too much space with the Pokemon, I decided to use ghost Pokemon in their first form.

As for colors, I decided to play around with the blues. The main idea is keeping the light and darkness clash against each other but making sure that they blend well together. What do you guys think? Did I accomplish it?