There was a recent cute photo uploaded by yu_ra_ne on instagram that reminded me of Sakaki (from Azumanga Daioh) trying to pet cats. Which of course led me to make this painting of Sakaki petting Maya, the Iriomote Mountain Cat.
This is the photo of yu_ra_ne that I’m talking about, which I used for reference:
I really like the introduction of Yamato. The last chapter I read was when she was introduced, I really have to get back to it. I’m really hoping she becomes part of the straw hat crew.
The Nagatoro anime has finally released. They did a good job animating it. The coloring style is also pretty good, although there are some instances that they want to add more details to Nagatoro’s hair but it looks a bit too digital? Although it’s 2D, it somehow looks cg. The hair effects to make it more detailed need some work or needs to be stylized differently, or maybe using different colors might look better? Other than that though, I’m loving the voices they chose, Nagatoro’s fits perfectly. Wonder what the opening is going to be like? I wonder if making those transition segments are going to be common place? What I mean by this, sometimes when they make a transition some cute Nagatoro cats and Nagatoro appear. The other anime that I have seen doing this was in Demon Slayer. If you guys know what I’m talking about, let me know if this is becoming a popular trend in other animes.
This was painted with Corel Painter 2020 using the Sargent Brush and oily brush. It took me 2 hours and 22 seconds.
This is the colored version of my Sayu drawing done with Copics. It was painted with Corel Painter and then used the layer styles from PhotoShop. Each style changes different aspects of the painting when it interacts with the line art and the painting layer. I think each one has it’s appeal. Soft light gave it a pastel look which I really liked. Because the copic ink doesn’t completely cover the texture of the paper and it also doesn’t always completely cover an area (there are some patches that are lighter), these can give interesting effects when painted digitally and played with the layer options. This can be affected even further when playing with the layer transparency.
It’s always fun when I draw Sayu. Recently she cut her hair down so I really want to do another piece with her new hair style.
I wanted to work with my Copic for the line art step. I have done this before and really like the effect that I can get out of it when I paint it digitally. Sadly it seems like my copic tips are getting worn out, they have this gummy feel to them now. I guess I’ll have to replace them soon.
Today is the last day to upload to the Final Gear -Heavy Battle Princess contest here on Pixiv. I wanted to try something different this time, so I decided to try going for an Ukiyo-e style. I decided to go for a mix between traditional and digital (although if I had a bit more time I might have painted it traditionally). But I quite love the way it all came together. I really loved working in this style, I really want to try it again at some point. Hope you guys like it.
I wanted to once again give the 90s anime aesthetic another try today. I painted Saki using Photoshop and the background with Corel Painter. For the texture that makes it look like it’s being shown in an old tv I used the Photoshop filter (I believe it was noise) which gave me just the right textured I wanted. I could have gotten away with it if I had muted the colors a bit more but this works even better.
Saki’s outfit and dance moves are quite amazing in this pv. I wonder if she would ever consider doing a solo career? I’m just glad she is still active online though, I really enjoy seeing her Kendama progress.
When it came to painting Athena I was imagining some colors I had seen in what I think was a promotional video of Sonoko Kawai. But when I was trying to find that video I failed. More than likely it got deleted or it might have been someone else but I’m pretty sure it was Sonoko. This is one of the reasons I have started to just back up any videos that I like and that interest me. With that option out of the question I remembered I had some JR Christmas commercials that had similar colors to what I wanted. I ended up using the commercial featuring Eri Fukatsu. Getting the skin tone correctly took a couple of tries since I hadn’t used it before. I should definitely play around with such lighting more.
