I really miss Buono! I’m so glad they have so many recorded media of their activities. What’s great is that there are a lot of new fans appearing. Their legacy continues to grow!
This painting took me longer than I thought it would but I’m finally finished. I went with an 80s anime style. I started with the background and then started painting from left to right. The line art was overlaid digitally then set to multiply. The base colors went in first then I started adding the leopard, polka dots and star designs, etc. I then created a separate layer where I multiplied the shadow layers. Then above all the layers for each member I created a new one for the lighting. To keep with the anime aesthetic I chose the typical anime hair colors so that they popped more. For their eyes, I chose their member colors.
As I was working on this painting I got reminded that Berryz Koubou’s 18th debut anniversary was on March 3rd. Sadly I wasn’t able to do a piece to commemorate it though. I still wan to make one though. I have an idea for one, but maybe I should save that one for their 20th anniversary. Or maybe I should just make that one, we’ll see.
A great intro to Buono! is Hatsukoi Cider. Check it out here (Their official video has over 5 million views!):
Didn’t have the time to finish it today but at least the line art is ready. I was thinking about uploading an inked version but this refined pencil line art will do for now. I saw the prompt for idols and of course I had to draw something for it. There are many options but I decided to go with BUONO! The formation of Momoko, Miyabi and Airi was just magical.
There’s this artist named Criisalys that I really like. I’ve seen the art a while ago being used by Macross 82-99. I’m surprised it took me this long to find the actual artists Twitter and Instagram. It can be found here:
I want to try out this style. The model for this will be the beautiful Miyabi Natsuyaki. There are always great reference photos to choose from, but ended up going with this one:
I really like this look, it’s very Aesthetic and would fit with the coloring style I’m trying to emulate.
One other notable thing to mention has to do with my new Xp-Pen tablet/monitor. So I have a set up of multiple monitors and have now added monitor profiles to switch some of them off. This has the added effect though that some of my windows get scrambled, including what monitor is selected for my Xp-Pen. But I noticed that I could move the cursor on other monitors. Today I decided to try it out and it works great (I was cleaning up the drawing). There doesn’t seem to be pressure though… but for simple and quick fixes/painting this works out great.
For the painting of Miyabi in her maid outfit I used a couple of references for the pose, one of them happened to be of Miyabi in her outfit for the Hello Project Winter 2019 Concert. I really loved the pose, the dress and the crown working together to make Miyabi look so beautiful. This time I wanted to hatch and cross hatch. The line art itself was done with my g pen and the hatching was done with my maru pen.
I recently talked about how my monitors were not calibrated correctly so my colors and values were off. I’m going back and trying to fix some of the previous paintings I have done. Miyabi dressed as a maid is of course one of those paintings.
I just had to paint Miya in her maid outfit with the nostalgic Buono! pose. I couldn’t find the whole outfit look from the waist down so I had to make it up.
Time has been a bit short lately, but I somehow managed to paint a piece in time (at least in my location) for Miyabi’s birthday. This time I’m trying out a new oil brush in photoshop from the dry oil brushes by Martina Palazzese. I quite like the texture it gives, especially to the line art. Hopefully I’ll have a bit more time to play around with it on my next painting.
I quite liked the outfit Miyabi showed on her instagram and the one Peace wore on another picture. So I decided to combine them.
Because of the lack of time today, I went with a flatter coloring style which I want to practice more and get better at. One artist whom I really look up to in this regard is Takato Yamamoto. You can see his work here:
It’s a bit sad that Pink Cres. will be disbanding but I’m glad that Miyabi has decided to continue singing. I wonder what new direction her solo career will take. I hope the best for Kobayashi Hikaru in her pursuits in the fashion industry and Nihei Yuuka’s plans to become a stage actress.
I decided to make a painting based on my favorite song from Pink Cres. “Tokyo Confusion”. I wasn’t too sure about the style I should go with so I just started painting until I arrived at this final painting.
In any case, thank you Pink Cres. for these past years of happiness. Here’s looking to the future.