Inktober 2018 #11 Athena Asamiya

Started really late so not much time, need to get to sleep soon. But here is a quick drawing of Athena Asamiya from King of Fighters 99′. She was another one of the characters that I really liked/like using.

This is the piece, no shading just the outline this time:

Looks really rough and unfinished, but that’s alright.

I used both these as the references:

Here is the process:

A shame I didn’t finish it, but those are the struggles. I will explain what took so much of my time tomorrow.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 11, 2018 0

Inktober 2018 #10 K’

SNK and the King of Fighters are by far my favorite fighting games, and I always felt that they had the better designs compared to their competitor Street Fighters. Man, King of Fighters. It just brings back memories from my childhood. I started with the Art of Fighting on my Super Nintendo. It was one of my favorite games that I played with my brothers back then. Then I later learned and played the King of Fighters (and of course Metal Slug) on the arcade machines that some people had in their houses or in the small shops. Those were some fun times (though it did eat up my coins).

Later when I was in fifth grade I had a friend who owned a Playstation and got to play the King of Fighters 99. This is the game I have the most fond memories of. That’s also where I learned about my favorite King of Fighters character K’. He has such a cool design and at the time it was quite uncommon to see a character with brown skin, which was a big deal for me at the time. Of course we (my brother, my friends and myself) all wanted him to be Mexican and since he had a mysterious background we used that as an excuse to make him so (in our minds). He had such a cool design with his white hair with his cool fire arm. His fighting style was also pretty cool, the way he walked and his moves, then there was the one inch punch… Point is I really liked using him, even if I sucked at using his move set.

This is the final drawing:

I’m thinking of using this smaller nib (I believe it’s a maru nib) to work with the shading and see if that makes it faster and easier than using the G nib. I can control it, but it’s all up to pen as to whether it releases the ink the way I want or it doesn’t jump as I shade.

I decided to give myself a bit of a challenge so I used a gif which kept moving so I had to really pay attention and remember what I wanted to draw. I believe this is from King of Fighters 99′:

Here is the process:

His face looks too clean, nice, kiddy, I don’t know. But I will fix that with the shading later.

All was going well, then I made a dumb mistake when I placed my hand on K’s arm and smudged the paper next to his leg. Somehow that smudge looks cool to me though.

That’s it for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 10, 2018 2

Inktober 2018 #9 Leaf

Just something simple and fast so I can work on another piece. Funnily enough it was a rather tough piece. Not because it don’t have the skills but because the pen kept skipping and dropping not enough ink or noticeable droplets that messed with the values. Because of that I was forced to work with darker and darker values. A shame because I was aiming to try and get it to look realistic.

Here is the process:

While I was refilling this little container where I keep the ink I wasn’t thinking and allowed an ink bubble to burst which of course fell onto the paper. After ending the cycle of mistakes I go and make simple and dumb one.

I was actually planning to finish it at this point, but when uploading the pictures to my pc I saw that it would be an easy fix if I pushed the values further.

So I did and ended with this.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 9, 2018 0

Inktober 2018 #8 Our dog

Today I wanted to draw my dog. I’ve had the idea of dressing him like a human, but that will be some other time (if I do do it, you’ll see what I mean). Now, because has hair all over I have to really think about where I place shading and where I leave it blank. I wanted to comment on this with Reina’s drawing but I feel like I have really gotten better at my control with the pen. I have a tendency to really press down hard when I draw and write, so hopefully all of this translates into my future projects.

This little guy has a tendency to show his cute face when he wants something. Whether it’s to get pet or if he wants to eat or drink some water. He lets us know by acting like he is eating something to say he wants to eat or he licks his tongue really loud to tell us he wants water. He’s such a funny guy.

Here is today’s Inktober drawing:

And here is the reference picture:

And the process:

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 8, 2018 0

Inktober 2018 #7 Tanaka Reina

Today is the 7th day so I decided to draw Tanaka Reina. It may seem strange since she is a 6th generation member but back in the day when she first joined Morning Musume she was given the nickname 07 by (I believe it was Iida Kaori). 0 is rei and 7 is nana, so rei+na = 07.

In any case Reina was definitely one of my favorite members in Morning Musume. She along with Ai were the main vocalist for Morning Musume back during the Platinum Era. She always had this tough demeanor, but if one saw Haromoni one could tell she was actually quite soft inside. She was the type who had doubts and was very self conscious but overcame it all with sheer will power and did her best to exude confidence. During the final years that the Platinum Era was still together, it seemed like she was opening up more and getting comfortable… Shame that all things must end.

After leaving and forming LoVendoЯ it seems like she mellowed out and is more comfortable with the people around her. I remember reading a blog post or something of the like where she wrote how she wished she had opened up more with some members when she had the chance. I like to think she was talking about her time with the Platinum Era members…

This time I tried to really control the shading on the face and skin. And this time I made sure to not make the eyes too dark, instead I gave it shades. I believe it looks much better this way.

This is the reference picture used from Reina’s photobook RE (Return). I could’ve used any of them. Looking at them, I really get that sense of Fall.:

As usual, here is the process for those who are interested:

Hey, two days with no dumb mistakes. Not bad.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 7, 2018 0

Inktober 2018 #6 Kamei Eri

It’s the 6th day so how about a sixth generation member of Morning Musume. I’ve been obsessed with Michishige Sayumi lately so this time I chose Kamei Eri, probably the funniest member in Morning Musume’s history. She’s just so funny and cute in a way that was entirely just Kamei Eri. It’s no wonder she is a fan favorite for many people. On top of that she gave it her all in the concerts. It’s really hard not to like her. One can really find her charm in any of her appearances in Haromoni or any of the dvd’s she appeared on. It’s a shame one doesn’t hear much from her anymore after her graduation. I hope she is doing great as a “normal” person.

One complaint on the drawing itself is that I made the eyes too dark. I should have given them a slightly lighter shade. But over all I really like the way she turned out.

This time I only used my G Pen (definitely much easier to control than the brush pens).

Here is the reference picture I used from Eri’s photobook “Thanks” (her final photobook). I like this picture because it fits so well with Autumn.:

And here is the process for those who are interested.

That will be all for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 6, 2018 0

Inktober #5 – Takahashi Ai

By now it’s obvious that I am a big fan of Morning Musume, specifically the Platinum Era (don’t really keep up with the new generations after my favorite members left). So since it was the 5th day of October I decided to choose a 5th generation member, and of course it would have to be Takahashi Ai who really made me want to learn more about Morning Musume. I was in high school when I came across this Japanese music video of a group of girls singing. I didn’t know who they were but they captured my interest right away. There voices were all different from each other and the music was really energetic. The girls themselves were incredibly cute but there was one member who just captured my attention. She had short hair, a beautiful smile and a voice that left me amazed and wanting more. I chose this drawing based on the scene that really stuck out and I had in my mind whenever I thought about Mikan.

Prior to this I wasn’t really interested in Idols, but this MV really changed my perspective and for a time really got me involved in the world of idols which made me see their struggles, work ethic, and triumphs. I’d say it had a big impact in my life. Whenever I went to a place like the summit of a mountain or of the tallest sand dune after the struggle to hike up it I had this urge to just play and listen to Mikan while I rested atop that accomplishment thinking, “I did it”. (Does this even make sense?)

Sadly I was super busy so I started drawing this piece really late at night and ran out of time. That was a mistake because I decided to use some brush pens that I forgot I had for … well some years now I guess. They are the Koi Coloring brush pen set from Sakura. This set contains three different values of cool grey and three of warm grey. One thing I should have done was to choose to use either the cool or the warm but not both.

Seeing as I was low on time, maybe I should have left it like this. Or went with the hatching technique to add shadows.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690015/in/dateposted-public/

But once I added these black areas the values changed dramatically so I had to continue. Plus I was intent on giving these brush pens a try.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216689935/in/dateposted-public/

It’s going alright but really rough and unfinished/ weird, I just had to keep pushing it even further.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216689915/in/dateposted-public/

So I added more shadows… But, well it’s just unfinished. I ran out of time, in a few minutes it would be the 6th of October and I had to go to sleep as well. So with that I had to call it quits and this is what I ended up with. It’s so close to being finished and looking right, and yet it isn’t. Because I added these shadows I changed the values quite a bit, thinking now I could fix it by adding darker values in other areas to lighten the shadows on Ai’s face. I will leave it like this since I believe it is in the spirit of this challenge to live with the difficulties and mistakes one makes along the way.

One other that could have helped was to make thicker lines in certain areas to make the areas that I wanted to appear lighter, well, lighter.

Here is the reference I used. I took a screen grab from the MV Mikan:

Here is the process for those who are interested:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690665/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690625/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690585/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690495/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690455/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690405/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690265/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690195/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690135/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690085/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690055/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216690015/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44407756054/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216689935/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/44216689915/in/dateposted-public/

That should be all for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 5, 2018 0

Inktober 2018 #4 Double Feature – Asuka and Rei

I wasn’t really sure what to draw, but my brother let me know that October 4th is Evangelion’s 23rd anniversary which is why I decided to draw Asuka and Rei.

These are the final drawings. I was planning on only drawing Asuka, but decided to draw Rei as well. After all she was one of the reasons I first decided to watch Evangelion. More on that later.

I used three references for the Asuka drawing. Since it’s October and Fall I went with Asuka from the rebuilds since she wears that cool jacket and hat.

As for the Rei drawing, back in the day when I didn’t have internet or even a dvd player I used to rent vhs tapes from my public library. Luckily they carried anime which I of course rented. One of my favorite things about those cassettes were the trailers since they were made like amvs. They used to show scenes from the anime and played (usually) the opening theme song which I loved watching either because of the animation, the song or both.

As for Evangelion, I forget what tape I played (though I believe it was probably Blue Seed), but there was a trailer for Evangelion. I had never seen nor heard of it before. But it blew my mind. This rendition of the trailer had the opening theme song (so far I have only found another version of the trailer online which uses the song Ode to Joy) and it just blew me away. It was … beatiful … glorious… and captivating. I just wanted to see it.

One of the images that captivated me was when I saw a blue haired girl behind a window looking right at me with her beautiful red eyes. Such a great trailer.

As it turns out, after looking through my local library (I didn’t know how to really navigate the internet, much less their website), but it just so happened to carry the whole series of Evangelion. I was elated, but there was one problem. It was on DVD. I didn’t own one at that time. It was torture knowing it was so close and yet so far out of my reach.

Anyway, that is why I made this piece. I could have added some shading but it was too late by this point.

These are the references I used:

Here is the process for those who are interested:

And this is the process for Rei:

It was all going well until I made a mistake and once again ran my hand over Rei’s hair (that’s 4 mistakes in a row).

That should be all for now.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 4, 2018 0

October is finally here! Inktober 2018 #1

I first heard about Inktober last year. I wasn’t really planing on joining in this year but after thinking about it, it should be a good way to practice my drawing and inking techniques.

What I understood about Inktober is that one should not only draw only using ink and a pen, but that one should not use anything else. So no rough drafting, just drawing with the pen and working with the mistakes that happens as one goes along.

For the my first drawing I of course drew Sayumi Michishige. I seem to be able to draw rather fast… or at least it seemed fast, I feel that those countless hours I spend investing on my drawing skills have been paying off.

This is the reference I used from her book “Sayu: Sayumi Michishige Personal Book”:

This is the process for those who are interested.

If you look to the right at Sayu’s left elbow you can see a big blotch of ink. That was a careless mistake I made where I ran my hand over it while the ink was still wet. Nothing I can do except keep going.

Oh, before I forget. I used a brush pen and this other pen to ink the boots. Forgot to take a photo of them with the dip pen.

I’ll try to draw one drawing everyday for Halloween, and also do some of the other artwork… it’s going to be a rather busy month.

In any case, that should be all,

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

October 1, 2018 0

Shin Shell of Fury POSTER parody of “New Fist of Fury”

I have already done one parody poster before, so I wanted to do another one. This time I wanted to give it a try doing it digitally.

This is the poster in question. This was back in the day when Jackie Chan was marketed as the new Bruce Lee, this movie is a continuation of the original Fist of Fury. The poster is quite amazing, but it was a bit scary as a project since it had so many parts to it. Lacking the experience at the time it took quite a bit of time, but I learned a lot.

This is the poster finished on July 23.

And here is the process. I tried to get as much as the background as I could. For this pieces I used the actual colors from the poster by using the eyedropper tool in Photoshop.

One thing to note is that I actually made a round figure for the faces but erased around the hair for a reason I don’t quite remember.

After this I added the text to make it like the original poster.

In any case that should be all, what do you guys think?

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

September 13, 2018 0

First attempt at using Stabilo Pens – subject: Michishige Sayumi

I recently bought some new pens when I went to a somewhat local art store. When I was browsing around I came upon some pens that I haven’t seen before named Stabilo pens. After looking at them I noticed that they were almost exactly what I was looking for. In the past Copics used to have multiliners that came in different colors which I would have loved to use as outlines for my artwork, but they got discontinued a good bit ago. Ever since I was trying to find a replacement I could try and use instead but I wasn’t too happy with the limited selection Prismacolor had so I haven’t really used them since I bought them a couple of years ago. But these Stabilo pens seem to have a rather robust color selection and they also offered different nib sizes (though for now I’m really only interested in the multiliner type). And when I saw their price being really cheap I thought what the heck, so I bought 10 (all of them either skin tones or grays). So since this was going to be my first try using them I decided to give the honor to Michishige Sayumi as the subject. Here’s what it looks like finished (done with my new Stabilo pens and Copics). Process below for those who are interested.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a piece traditionally so I was a bit worried, but it went rather smoothly and the whole portrait took me only a couple of hours.

On the right are my new pens, these are the colors I have so far.

And as usual I start outlining using my 2H pencil.

And that leads me to the finished piece (already shown at the beginning):

My thoughts on the Stabilo pens? So far I really love them. They leave beautiful marks and are resistant to my Copics too. Not only that but the color selection makes them quite useful for different applications. I’m definitely planning on upgrading my collection. The only downside is that they don’t seem to be refillable, but they’re not expensive so it’s not a big deal. Can’t wait to see what I can create with them.

-Bonus-

In any case, as I was writing this I had recently gotten off my other job and was happy to find a new video with members of Platinum Era Morning Musume, and that led me to another video that happened to give me a rather happy coincidence.

-By the way I use a dual monitor set up, left is my XP-Pen (that doubles as a monitor when not used for art) and my normal monitor on the right.

Anyway as I was watching this video I noticed that Sayu was looking right at them as they performed, I noticed this and found it funny and a coincidence as a certain number was happening. (I know I’m the only one finding pleasure and happiness in this but whatever).

Those who get it, get it.

Anyway, that’s this update.

Hasta la proxima,

-Nube

September 6, 2018 0

Painting Sayumi Michishige digitally with my new XP-PEN

On April 23 of this year I decided to take another plunge and buy an on screen graphics tablet. Of course one does have to be weary of anything that is cheap. So I was pondering first about buying a graphics tablet for a couple of years, then when I did have money saved up I began noticing the other options. At first I was thinking about getting the Wacom Cintiq 13HD, but I’m living in a time that new competitors are emerging in China. On top of that, they offer bigger sizes at around 1/3 of the price of Wacom’s 13 in. offering. I decided to wait it out till a good amount of reviews and tests were done on them. A number of reviews seemed to be positive but there were not that many of them. Then at some point it seems like these products were being given away to Youtube artist so that they could “review” them (many of them were just unboxings). On top of that, they were always compared to Wacom Cintiqs (which is ok) but they tended to focus on it way too much. In the end these reviews really didn’t give me much confidence. Specially since I hadn’t used any on screen graphics tablet before so many of the points they were making I couldn’t really connect to.

One piece of advice I did connect to was that a bigger screen would work much better since I would have more space to work and wouldn’t have to be squinting or enlarging the image as much. So despite the countless positives of owning a Cintiq, I decided to bite the bullet and buy an XP-PEN Artist 22E ( it’s a 22-inch display graphic monitor). It’s strange, it is quite an expensive device so I almost felt bad about buying it. I even didn’t use it for a week, it just laid by my desk covered by my jacket. But at some point I decided to give it a try. Since this was my first graphics display I struggled a bit setting it up. But it’s actually quite easy when you know what you are doing. A quick tip is to set it all up is using the pen program used for this tablet. If this is your only display than you shouldn’t have a problem, but if you have a two display set up make sure you choose the XP-PEN as the correct monitor and also make sure it isn’t chosen as the extended option (this was the only thing that gave me a hard time). If it seems to not be working, remember that you should restart your computer after you install the driver and program.

I didn’t really want to write anything about this display till I had used it for a good bit. So far it has been two months, so I will document my experiences so far (I will do so in the future as well, I’m quite interested if this tablet will last me a good while or if it will only last for a year of something).

So far I’m content with it. I know a bit more about digital art, so now that I have this on screen graphics display I can work much faster since I’m actually drawing and painting on the canvas itself. One can get used to the other tablet like the Bamboo Manga I used previously, but nothing beats working on the artwork directly. And with the two monitor system I can work on the XP-PEN and look at my reference picture/s and even some sort of entertainment on my second monitor. It works quite great. I used to use my laptop to work on artwork, but now I’m using my PC that my brother gave me which is much more powerful and can take quite a beating (with all the programs I use simultaneously).

The monitor itself works quite well and seems to be of a good quality. In the reviews they talked a lot of paralaxing, but since I’ve never used a better display or really see it as a problem, I really don’t notice it. If I want to draw or paint somewhere the paint applies my paint where I want it. The on frame buttons are also quite useful and have increased my workflow. It came with a stand included that worked great but it took a good amount of my desk real state. So with that in mind I decided to invest in a monitor arm. But I was also weary of buying a cheap one that would break easily or would not move the way I need it to. After much thought and research I decided to go for the Amazon basics arm (in fact another reviewer of this display bought this arm which prompted me to give it a try). Now with this arm and the display I can work much better, more comfortable and faster. Before I was contemplating buying a wireless keypad and converting the keys into hot keys for the art programs like Photoshop. But with this set up I can have the display above the keyboard and away from my arms when I’m drawing and is easily accessible when I need to make a command.

One thing that really freaked me out was that the pen was leaving scratches on the display. I couldn’t really find much about it online, but I guess this is normal… These scratches also leave behind a rainbow effect on the screen but if you clean it off a bit it the rainbowing effect disappears so it really isn’t a problem. I wonder if a softer stylus tip exists? Whatever the case, after a while you don’t really notice it. I guess it’s one of those things where you get a new item and you are always weary of scratching it or something.

As for what can be done with it, that just depends on one’s skills.

I chose Sayumi Michishige as my first model for my very first artwork on this tablet.

This is the reference picture I chose:

Here is what I managed to do with it, my first digital study:

This was done on May the 18th. Since then I have been working some more work which I will upload soon.

So far I really love my new XP-PEN, but time will tell if it was a solid investment and will last me a good couple of years or if it’s a cheap “imitation” that will break in the near future. I’m hoping it it does last.

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

June 7, 2018 0