Playful Chizuru Kagura V2

For today’s art piece I decided to give a past painting another try. Today I repainted Chizuru Kagura which I originally did on December 2021.

It can be seen here:

… Yeah, this drawing definitely needed a makeover. I removed the line art and instead softened the lines I painted. The eyes I resized and also softened Chizuru’s eyelashes.

Hasta la proxima,

-Nube

Inktober 2022 06 Lynn Minmay

Day 6 of Inktober. This time I decided to draw Lynn Minmay. I saw this cute photo of Akina Nakmori talking in the phone that I thought would work very well. This time I decided to to add more hatching. For the hair I decided to follow the flow of the hair while for the jacket I decided to go for a more stylized hatching technique.

Everything was going well, but I did mess up twice this time. The maru pen got stuck and sent droplets of ink all around the left top corner of the drawing and then I touched the ink and smudged on the right hand sleeve. I uploaded a cleaned up version, but in the spirit of inktober I have also uploaded the original version as well.

reference used:

As a side note, when I uploaded my drawings to Pinterest I got some Akina Nakamori photos as suggested similar pictures. I wonder if it had to do with what I had in the description, a recent search or …

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Akemi Homura glance – Corruption

I wasn’t really sure how I would merge these two paintings. I know I wanted them to be back to back, so I flipped them accordingly. The colors were also not where I wanted them, so I adjusted them to their current form. When I put them on the same canvas there was a gap between them which had me stumped. At first I filled it in with some solid colors that made a clear separation between them. But that was just too simple and boring. Then I finally figured out that I could just merge them and have them interact with each other. I first had the backgrounds blend with each other. As I kept working I finally came to the realization that I could have both versions of Akemi back to back with their clothes appearing on each other’s side of the canvas. Then the idea of having hair strands move from the shy Akemi to the hardened Akemi came to my mind. Luckily the idea worked out. There was still something I felt was missing though. That’s why I decided to add the soul gem between the two Akemis. Behind the soul gem I wanted light to be emanating from it, but when I darkened the left side it looked a lot like feathers so I changed the original concept to be a wing motif. I think this version of both of them together looks much better.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Akemi Homura glance

The counterpart to my previous painting of Akemi. This time it’s of her after getting in the time loop. I pondered a bit about the background and decided to go with the scene of her fighting against Walpurgisnacht. I wanted a darker background though so made it with twilight colors. The floating buildings are such a stunning visual that I wanted them present.

Since this will be a pairing for the last painting, I have modified the previous painting. I’ll add them both together at a later date.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Akemi Homura glance Timid

The first line art of Akemi Homura has now been painted. I wasn’t too sure about what to do with the background since I want to differentiate them from the timid Homura before becoming a magical girl and the new bitter version after having to live her nightmare over and over. I edited the line art a bit before painting.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Marin measurements V2

I wasn’t too happy with the first version of my painting of Marin Kitagawa, it just didn’t pop. I wanted Marin to glow because of the sunlight coming from the window. Aside from that, I also added a couple of more details around the whole painting.

The original painting can be seen here:

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Shokuhou Misaki after a workout

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

Sayu-Mask

Despite the end of last year being quite dry, the start of this year has given us quite a bit of snow. I quite like the athmosphere this creates which is why I decided to use it for the painting this time around. The line art was done for Inktober 2021 day 27 which can be seen here:

The model for this painting is Sayumi Michishige. I really love the outfit and colors. I debated on how I wanted Sayu’s colors to be overall. Light and faded, or darker, affected by the scenery. I opted for the darker route.

Reference photo of Sayu can be seen here (7th Photo):

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Dragon Ball Bunnies

I went for an 80s anime painting style this time. Doing simple colors can really pop, I need to practice in more simplistic coloring styles. I have a couple of artists that I can learn from. As for this specific drawing, I want to try painting it in my style as well. That will be a future project.

The original drawing was done for Inktober 2021 day 29. I remember that I really wanted to emphasize the more round designs that Toriyama used to use back in the days, a style that much prefer. The painting really helped emphasize the curves which I love.

Still annoyed that Lunch has been forgotten.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Asuka Kato Ramen

I finally painted my Asuka Kato drawing. This was first drawn for Inktober 2021 day 15. I felt Asuka was too lonely so I added Hina and Uchi. Thinking back, I guess I was imagining Asuka eating in a Ramen Stall or something. But I really liked the Ramen chapter so I decided to have them go back this time in winter. I accidently painted Hina and Uchi in their summer uniforms. Luckily it was a quick fix since they were drawn digitally. Once I had the background and Hina/Uchi painted, I then finished the painting with Asuka.

In this scenario, Yuri actually did get a seat next to Tomoko this time (when I read that chapter, I felt that…). Uchi is of course fixated on Tomoko who is on Asuka’s right (our left). Nemoto being able to read the mood, has noticed us looking at the super cute Asuka eating some ramen. Hopefully this time Asuka doesn’t have any problems again finishing it. One of the reasons I really love Watamote is that even beautiful and I guess idealized people like Asuka are shown to be, well, human. Having to deal with the same problems we all face, be it physical or emotional.

Hasta la proxima,

Nube