This background is a bit rough but I don’t need it to be too detailed once I put in the subjects.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Lake and Mountain Background
Autumn Lake
There is an illustrator by the name of fjsmu (ふじしむ) that uses some beautiful colors for his paintings. I wanted to give it a try. I believe it uses the concept of color theory. It really makes it pop. I will try to keep this in mind for future paintings.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Frieren and Himmel Lake Meeting
After weeks, I finally get to upload this painting of Frieren and Himmel. I was more worried about getting the right look of the lake and the reflections correctly. But I think I managed to do that. I wonder if I did the right thing making Himmel’s cape capable of covering his head. In the anime I never saw him do it, but all the amount of fabric makes it seem so. Which is why I decided to take some artistic liberties.
I wanted to create a fantastical feel with the setting, color and brush strokes. I’m getting close to what I’m imagining but I haven’t quite fine tuned it. Nothing I can do except to keep painting.
On another note, I am getting tempted to start collecting figures. Not only because they look so cool and beautiful but they would help out a lot as reference material since I could study them from different angles. Perhaps in the future.
Also, since I recently finished reading Dungeon Meshi. It’s time I read the Frieren manga. Can’t believe I forgot to do that.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Meimi Spring
It’s time to reveal the main subject that corresponds to this background. It’s Meimi Tamura. The reference I used is from her music video Butai. I really love the song and music video it self. There are many scenes I want to give a try in painting but that will be for another time.
Here is the music video, do check it out:
We have come to the end of Spring, my second favorite season. I managed to make a few seasonal paintings to celebrate but I had more ideas that i didn’t get to do this time. Hopefully I will manage to do better next year. Next paintings will be about the Summer (my least favorite season due to the heat).
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Misty Flower Lake Background
For today’s background painting I am continuing the Spring theme (which is getting closer to it’s end). I was worried about whether I could bring to life what I had in mind. I had to take in steps among a couple of days to figure out how to make it work. Not rushing things and taking time off away from the painting has really helped me. Now I understand why other artists do it.
The actual painting is actually now finished, but like other paintings I will upload it at another date. This will help me as well to look at it at a later date with fresh eyes.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Cloudy Lake
Been wanting to paint this for quite a bit now. This week has been quite rainy and tomorrow it will apparently be raining all day so it also fits the occasion. The background itself wont be finished till I add the main subject though.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Mem-cho Winter stroll
I was fighting this painting till the end. I made so may edits at different times and now I’m not even sure how I feel about it. Did I push it too far? Not far enough? Should I simplify more? perhaps at a later date I will know the answer. But for now I will leave it as is.
I really like Memcho, I hope I did her justice. Either way I want to paint her more in the future.
For those who follow me here you get to see the old version I had ready to go a couple of weeks ago before I began editing it this week:
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Snow Mountain Lake Background
I was a bit worried about this one because the main subject had to be modified first before I started work on the background. I’m finally getting used to working with water and waves. I was using a reference photo that had a different type of mountain that what you normally see in Japan so I had to modify that once I had the main idea.
As a side note, I finally have everything needed to record sounds. Now it’s just a matter of coming up with a format. I do wonder if people would be interested in just watching a real time version as well. I might just upload that on my secondary channel in conjunction whenever I figure everything out.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Domon Winter
It surprisingly didn’t take me too long to paint Shining Gundam and Domon, along with their reflections and snow. Checking mountains in parts of Japan, there are actually quite a lot of types of shapes. Including the pointy ones that are common where I’m currently at. So I just modified them a bit.
Shining Gundam was the main focus and what took the longest for this segment of the painting. The main form and base colors were easy to choose From there I tried to make out the form to showcase the most prominent forms. But since I wanted to emphasize that the Gundam is far away, I made sure to use more muted colors and as little value changes as I thought were needed. Then came the snow. I felt a bit bad about covering some areas with snow and water, but I feel that really ties it all together. As for the reflections I used the same techniques as with the torii, but I made sure to add highlights to create waves moving away from Shining Gundam as it rises up.
There were a couple of ideas about where to place Domon. Walking in the frozen ground, atop a small boat or standing on the torii. But ultimately I came upon the idea to have him leaping towards it. This I feel really fits the fantastical elements of G Gundam after all.
I made two versions, one where it’s all quiet and peaceful and another where snow is falling. Although I do like the snow, I think it looks better where it isn’t present.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Work in Progress I D Mountains
I’m currently working on a new painting before I try to make one or two for Valentines. I’ve actually been planning to make a painting of this sort for… damn. A couple of years now. I’m surprised it took me this long to finally give it a shot. The background is mostly done. I’m actually quite a bit ahead of this but I quite like the atmosphere of where the painting is at this point. Although I can render the painting further, I wonder if that will detract from the focal subjects. So for now, I will leave it mostly as it is.
This is the reference photo of the background, modified to have snow of course:
I just did an image search to find the original creator and it seems to be from a photo manipulator that put different assets together to create this. I found it strange that the pine trees and mountains looked somewhat Western. Now I know why.
With that in mind, I will go back and edit a couple of the trees so that they fit Japanese ones. Among other changes. I wonder if there is a place in Japan that will actually fit this scenery?
The Toori is actually painted already, along with the reflection. I’m surprised at how easy it was to emulate. You guys will have to wait till next time to be the judges though. Luckily I won’t have to edit that part of the painting.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Ranma and Akane skating
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
Akane Jogging
This painting is influenced by the poster of “Maboroshi no mizuumi”, it reminded me of the first episode of Ranma where we were shown how diligent Akane was in her training. Looking at the plot of the movie though, it has a rather sad plot. That was a bummer. I wanted to do an 80s anime style where I try to replicate Ranma 1/2s look.
Poster used: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0226998/mediaviewer/rm112027904/
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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