Shin Godzilla

I was wondering how I was going about when converting the black and white rough to color, but it was easier than I thought. First I changed the hue and then I made a quick and rough background. I wanted to add in the cityscape but as I kept painting I felt this minimalized background worked quite well. From there adding texture and colors to Godzilla was actually quite straightforward. At some point I felt having three versions of Godzilla in different stages of attack. While I was painting I felt the head and eyes were still derpy and wrong. So I had to make various edits including changing the eye position, size and shape as well as resizing Godzilla’s whole head.

While looking at Gozilla’s first beam attack, I notice a whole lot more details such as light particles appearing when preparing his beams. It’s a shame that we probably won’t be seeing more of Shin Godzilla. He overtook my favorite position from the 90s Godzilla.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Shin Godzilla

I love the scene where Shin Godzill first uses his atomic breath and other beams. I won’t lie, the first time I saw it on theaters I was surprised and wasn’t too sure about that change. But everytime I saw the movie again I fell in love with this new design and the new abilities. This scene in particular was very touching. The purple color is also a nice touch to differentiate it from other Godzillas.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Guts Frozen Quest Background WIP

Currently working on a painting that I had thought up last year. It’s still a bit rough at the moment, but the main idea has pretty much been painted out using my Surface Pro 5.

So I had bought a used Surface Pro so that I could paint on the go but rarely used it because it couldn’t keep up with the settings I use on my desktop. The canvas size was too large I found out. When I halved the size to around 2500 to 3500 the Surface is actually quite capable. I can’t believe that was all I need to do so that I could use it…

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

BerryKyuu 20th anniversary

It took a while but I finally managed to finish this painting to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Berryz Koubou and ℃-ute first known as the Hello Project Kids. I was wondering what I should draw\paint to celebrate and remembered the I believe Hello Morning episode where they announced the finalists who would be joining Hello Project. The delayed reaction of everyone learning that they were all chosen to stay was funny and cute. There was a good delay before they all reacted to the news. This I believe was a great moment to paint since this is where it all began.

Thank you for this past 20 years. And here’s to celebrating the future ones as well.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Momoko Tsugunaga Caligraphy Brush X Digital

It’s been almost a month since I had painted this piece, I can’t believe I have been pushing it back by that much…

The reference comes from Momoko’s final photobook.

The ink painting used can be seen here:

This follows my current practice working with ink brushes, the translucence it contains and the application of paint and how it interacts with it. I have a couple of other pieces that I can use to continue this practice. It’s amazing, but it does have it’s limitations on what can be done (coloring wise). On the other hand, the effects and textures are really unique and interesting.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

The Artist Avatar Challenge DarkCloudXERO

My entry to the DeviantArt contest. Tried to include all my current art styles into this piece, both traditional and digital. Background is fully digital, painted with Corel Painter. The astrological clock, character and ink jar backpack, g pen and brush were done using Photoshop. The pixel maid was done using Pro Motion NG and then enlarged using Photoshop. The skeleton was drawn using my g pen and the tiger was painted using ink. The text was drawn using Photoshop. 
I painted my current workspace which I used as the background, but most of it was covered up by the front layers and also cut off. 
Apparently if Scorpio is in the Moon Sun position, it indicates that they are “creative, intense and mysterious”. Which I thought would fit in well with the theme. 
Luckily I read the instructions again so I redid the VHS distortion by hand which does the trick quite well and has some cool painted effects from the I believe it was the pastel brush.

The character himself was actually the element that took me the longest to paint since I was just coming up with each section as I went along. Life can be hard and it can chain us down, both in terms of time, physical methods and psychologically. But art is a way that can help us break those restraints and let our emotions and creativity take shape, letting us create anything that’s inside our minds or that of others. 

With that in mind, I wanted to create a painting where I could use my art tools to bring my creations to life and help free me from my limitations and problems. The tools would change in size depending on the application and would revert to their original size when I needed to put them away. The ink jar I felt would be carried as a backpack. 

The reason the skeleton and the tiger are splattering ink is because they have been newly painted/drawn so they are not fully dry yet. 

Hope you guys like it.

#ArtistAvatarChallenge

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Ryoga Umbrella watercolor

What I wanted to try out was Rumiko Takahashi’s classic style of painting. Looking at various artworks I decided to paint Ryoga in this way using only one color for each section of Ryoga and using only the saturation of the paint to make color and value variations. But only ever so slightly. But before I did paint it, I went over the rough draft with my mechanical pencil to darken and indent the paper. Once this was done I then erased the whole paper and painted with whatever graphite managed to survive and the indentations left behind. The effect wasn’t too bad, but it was obvious that I needed to add some type of outline. For this instance I decided to do that by using my Copic multiliner and a Stabilo pen for the darker areas.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Emil 10th anniversary Celebration

Me and my brothers were waiting for this moment for a while now, and after ten years a remastered edition has now been confirmed in the Nier 10th anniversary event. So to celebrate I wanted to paint a quick piece. I’ve only drawn Emil once before for the Initial D drawing, but I wanted to do another one. Next time I want to do one of him using his magic or something, we’ll see.

I think this only took me a little over an hour to do. I played around with Photoshops blending brush again.  I really wish Corel Painter wasn’t as clunky and slow, Photoshop is beating it in this way as well. Corel 2020 is supposed to have fixed that but haven’t tried it out yet.

Emil 10th anniversary Nier

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

1st Krita drawing Sayu

I was looking into Clip Studio after I saw a video showcasing the ability to have the program auto color one’s line art. And what made it cool was that not only did it seem to work great but one can have a say on the colors used as well. I couldn’t try it out since the trial version doesn’t make it accessible. But there is a website that does the same thing named PaintsChainer so I played around with that for a bit. While I was reading more about Clip Studio I happened to hear about another program that was open source and free named Krita. I have heard of this program before (quite a while ago) but never gave it a chance. So I decided to finally give it a chance. I’m amazed at the amount of tools and options it has. It really does seem to offer (at least from what I have tried so far) everything most pro programs offer.

One other reason I was interested in using Krita is because Photoshop seems to make my tablet drivers quite after working on it for a while, and the only way to make them work again is to restart my pc. What sucks is that sometimes I only make a couple of strokes and the drivers quit on me. This makes working digitally really annoying, time consuming and messes with my work rhythm. Now to be fair I did have too many open tabs on chrome so I’m sure that was causing my pc to use too much memory causing problems.

In any case I’m glad this all culminated in me trying out this program because it’s quite amazing. It has many pen options and works quite well. Most things work like in any other painting program so making the change isn’t hard. I really like the g-pen to draw. One thing I’ve never tried was using the pen pressure to dictate the opacity. I’ts actually quite amazing and intuitive. I think I might prefer using the pen pressure in this way instead of controlling the size of the brush while painting. It gives me a feel that reminds me of how watercolor works.

I’m still not used to the way to color selector works, I prefer the one from Corel and Photoshop (the Coolorus addon one).

As for the drawing it self I wasn’t too sure what to draw so I just began doodling until at some point I decided to draw Sayu. This time though I just wanted to see what would come up if I just did things from memory and imagination. After doing the line art I decided to try out painting with the program and am quite surprised and pleased at how great it feels and works. I highly recommend it specially since it’s free. I’ll see how far I can push the program in some future works. Hopefully my tablet drivers will finally stop crashing as well so I can just draw and paint at my pace without disturbances.

The 1st drawing/painting:

The process:

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Misaka and Misaki’s Christmas 2018

How about a Christmas themed painting! (((o(*゚▽゚*)o)))

I really like the pairing of Misaka Mikoto and Misaki Shokuhou. The way they banter against each other is really cute, even more so when they have no choice but to work with each other. It was a smart idea to make them both rivals and allies at the same time. Definitely one of the best duos in the series. And seeing as they can hack into all security systems to delete their presence digitally and the power to also erase and manipulate peoples memories they really could get away with any crime. Whenever there are hints that they will pair up again I get really happy.

This painting was actually started last year. But I didn’t finish it on time. It still needed a background after all. So I decided to save it for this year’s Christmas. I was bogged down with other work but I managed to finish the background just in time to maybe even start a new Christmas piece. In any case I had to find a suitable reference picture. The one I found was in portrait mode so I had to make up the rest.

It was painted using my Kuratake Gansai Tambi watercolors and my Nicker Poster Colour paints.

Here is the final piece:

References used:

And here is the process:

drawing-

painting of Misaka Mikoto and Misaki Shokuhou-

process of the background:

And the process done digitally to combine both pieces:

 

Hope you guys like it. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

Halloween/Fall Artwork; Ghost Girl by the window

I was hoping to do a bit more artwork for the seasons, that way I had a bit more to aim for and to just get into the spirit of the holidays around the year (I feel that if I continue not to do so the years will just continue to feel monotonous and boring). I might do another quick one for Halloween before the actual day. Though Dia de los Muertos is also approaching…

It’ll be fine…

I guess that midterm and the extra work that piled up really did a number. But that’s life I guess.

I want to be able to meld reality and anime a bit more, so I want to play around with that a bit more. And this is one of the paintings where I am giving that a shot.

I am wondering if the way I do watercolor paintings look good to others or If I should make them look smoother so that the grain of the paper isn’t as noticeable. I can do that a bit more if I use color pencils to go over the watercolors I already put in. I have used this technique before, but I want to get better with just watercolors first so that I don’t just rely on color pencils to fix my inexperience. Once I get better I will try to combine them again, but hopefully this time correctly.

In any case this is the painting in question:

Ghost Girl by the window resize

There’s something about the character design of the ghost girl from Pokemon X/Y that I really like. So that is the theme for this year’s halloween painting. I was also looking forward ot seeing if I could make her zig-zag mouth look like it could belong to our world (what do you guys think?).

The painting itself is largely inspired by this picture I used as reference:

Cosplayer: Cherry Neko

ZkFmTE91UWs4eG5nUDNreXZSR2sxQ0w1UzBzdnJJNEliTWRjQWVjM28wQVoyQktCdXVUekF3PT0

One other thing I really wanted to try out was seeing if I could choose the right color schemes despite the reference pictures having different colors. As I’ve mentioned before color is still something I’m struggling with. So this was designed to be a good challenge for me to play around with that. I’m still relying on references but I will learn faster this way, and I will have a better understanding of how colors work as well.

I’m starting to get the hang of watercolors a lot more, to the point that I’m no longer afraid to try new techniques and push ones I’ve used before further. I still get a bit frustated when the sessions go for too long and I can’t quite get it right, but that’s fine (nothing a little rest can’t fix).

Strangely enough I actually drew this picture various times (four times) and colored it twice. Once with Copic markers and the second one with watercolors which is the one you see above.

Here is the original sketch/drawing:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37997922582/in/dateposted-public/

Here is the Copic version done with one of said four drawings:

Ghost girl 2017 I resize

The copic version exists because I wanted to first try out the color schemes that I thought would work. I did this because I didn’t want to use too much time painting only for it to come out wrong. And since Copics are faster to use and dry almost instantly it was a perfect medium to try out the colors. I was almost thinking of just using the Copic version as the final piece, but then I ran out of a couple of colors and buying replacements would be too costly so I just decided to start all over with watercolors. In other words I made this piece twice which is one of the reasons I haven’t posted in a while. But I’m finally done.

For those that are interested here is the process:

From this angle it look like a good start, but I would later learn that I had made quite a couple of mistakes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975118286/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/26252727129/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975115126/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/26252725479/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975112316/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/26252724059/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/24176567568/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319671004/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/24176565838/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319668314/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/24176563958/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319665864/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319664754/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319663354/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319661714/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319659964/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319658714/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319657424/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319656314/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975099496/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975099066/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975098526/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975097926/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319650324/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975096866/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319648004/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975095856/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319644924/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975094196/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37319641914/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975092656/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/26252707219/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975090236/in/dateposted-public/

Thinking I was pretty close to the end I noticed that the proportions were quite off. The head was much too big for the body, the shoulders were too small and so were the hips.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/38029011271/in/dateposted-public/

On top of that, after taking a break from painting when I came back I decided I needed to make even more changes to it.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37975444346/in/dateposted-public/

And this was the final version I decided to go with:

Ghost Girl by the window resize

Well that’s it for today. Hopefully I can get another piece out before Halloween (though it will be simple if it is).

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE