I want to draw more of Naoko Kawai.
reference:
Hasta la proxima,
-Nube
Naoko Kawai Tennis Line art
Majin Sonata Line art
The scene of the Majin laughing at Bojji gave me a strong image of the image “Tartini’s Dream”. I’ll talk about it more when I finish this piece. The goal is to draw and shade it all in pencil. but this is the line art and the way the scene is composed. For the final piece I will transfer it to another clean paper (I put too much pressure when I draw).
I’ll leave the description as it is for now, I’ll explain more when I make the finished drawing (although inking it would’ve looked nice too).
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Gijinka Shin Godzilla
I follow this cosplay photographer’s blog named CosplayJP. In this year’s “WONDER FESTIVAL WINTER 2022”, the photographer got some photos of a Shin Godzilla cosplayer. It’s a gijinka version, so of course the cosplayer had to be creative on how to portray Godzilla’s features. Godzillas tail being also a cape was a really great touch.
Here are the references (sadly the cosplayers name is nowhere to be found, If you know who it is let me know):
I want to do a couple black and white drawings for a while, but this time working with hatching or inking. The line art was done in pencil and darkened digitally after I isolated it from the white background. I was debating whether to hatch it traditionally or digitally. This time I decided to do it digitally using the g pen in Clip Studio Paint. That took a while. I know I can do this digitally but I wanted practice with different textures to differentiate between the clothes, the skin and the hair. It looked good, but I wanted to add a background. I started with the circle and the pattern screentone. But because I isolated the line art, the screentone became visible… So I had to paint it in within the line art. From there I felt it looked good, but I wanted to add a cityscape. I chose Shinjuku. I added a shadow below her to add more feeling. But with the black background, Godzilla blended in a bit too much so I added an outer glow to make her stand out more.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Shokuhou Misaki after a workout
Version 2 can be seen here: https://darkcloudxero.com/2025/07/11/shokuhou-misaki-after-a-workout-2/
Line art from inktober 2021 day 11.
As we learned from chapter 5.5 of Astral Buddy, Misaki exercises (or at least tries to) in her apartment. Alone. For this reason I chose this setting. Just using the basic layout in the manga I decided to go with the point of view of looking towards the window. Although it was a cool idea, I wasn’t really thinking about the window at all.
So as I was painting the floor, and the wall I was feeling really good because I was doing it with no references and just instinct. But when I came to the window it finally hit me. The window has to have a reflection… For that I did have to see references to try and learn how I can make it work. So for that I started working in sections, painting over each section at a time. The base layer was just blue, then I started working with the reflections. I started with the floor then the bed which would be in front of Misaki. The second part was reflecting the rooms walls. For that I used the wall’s colors but mixing them with the blue base to get a translucence look. From there I played with lighter light transfer to emphasize the furthest part of the room to a more solid color of the wall to showcase how close the ceiling is to the window. Looking at the references online, the lights outside (in cityscapes) are quite vibrant and go through the reflections. Looking through the To Aru anime, the window lights (from the skyscrapers) are usually turquoise. The final part of the window reflections were about Misaki Shokuhou, but first I had to paint her.
I didn’t have much of a plan to paint Misaki, so I started painting her exposed body first. Whit the vase idea done, I started working on the sweat beads. Luckily I had an idea of how it looks like on surfaces thanks to the painting I did of Momochi.
That can be seen here:
The second section I painted were the shorts, luckily this was pretty straight forward. I decided to work on the shirt next because I wanted to figure out how to do it. I started with a base light warm gray and started playing around with lighter areas (the folds and shirt bumps), then for the areas that are tight on the body, I made see through to simulate the sweat. In these areas I played with the way light reflects off the wet shirt and the areas that are in the shade.
For the third section I painted the hair. With Misaki mainly painted, I started playing around with the painting and added more sweat around the body.
This time I wanted to try out making the line art more translucent (I think I put it at around 30% opacity) and adding an outline in a layer underneath with colors that correspond to each part of Misaki. I’m going to be playing around with this style more.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Hina Nemoto hoodie
The line art is from inktober 2021 day 20. This time it’s Hina Nemoto from Watamote.
The weather is starting to change but it’s still chilly. Perfect for hoodies. This time I went for a more colorful scheme.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Ranma in the Sunset
Line art from inktober 2021 day 3.
I wasn’t too sure what to do with the background, but as I was looking through my screenshot references I came upon a couple of a sunset that I wanted to replicate.
Reference here:
I was wondering whether to change the colors of the outfit from the reference of Kyôko Koizumi:
But I quite liked this color combination so I decided to keep it. As for the color of the sneakers, I was playing around with the idea of various colors like purple but I ended up with this black accent ones.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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
Tadano’s Confession Colored
Hey, I was able to finish it by today. Good thing I started painting it yesterday. Happy Valentine’s day everybody.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Tadano’s Confession
Thinking about it now, had it been a couple of years before it wouldn’t have happened huh? The trope was always to string the relationships along for ratings and continued readership. Luckily that has been changing and love triangles and feelings don’t have to go unexplored. It’s obvious that the author loves drawing the female characters since he puts so much detail into a lot of their drawings depicting their feelings and some of their actions. That was showcased quite well in Komi’s reaction to Tadano’s confession. I really loved those panels. Specially when when she was holding her face and stroking her hair. For that reason I decided to join both together in this interpretation. Happy Valentines everybody.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
After the first Confession – Sacrifice
This is the painted version of my Manbagi line art. I made the lighting a bit more reddish and darker to showcase the passage of time since the last drawing.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
After the first Confession – Sacrifice Line Art
The second part of my Komi san Valentine’s series.
Manbagi catching on and figuring out what happened with Komi and Tadano was a really nice touch by the artist. Those flashbacks to Komi holding back for Manbagi’s sake as Manbagi confessed to Tadano pretty much explained all her mixed feelings regarding what going out with Tadano would mean. I think, that having these feelings are quite common right? When you know someone else likes the same person, specially a friend. To top it off, she also knew that Tadano had feelings for Komi. In the end, she chose friendship. A really bitter sweet ending to this love and friendship part of the story.
With that in mind, those mixed emotions are what I wanted to emphasize in this drawing.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Before the Confession
I painted the background and characters today. Since the scene took place after school, I went for a sunset theme. Since I haven’t seen the anime yet, I had to go and look for some of the colors of the classroom. Although the curtains are based on the first volume’s color scheme. When the background colors were set, I then began painting Tadano and moved over to Komi. Although I do feel that Komi would try and keep her tears till she was on her own, I came upon the idea of having her tear up.
This marks the first Valentine’s day painting for this year.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
