People sure do want to be stepped on by this tall vampire lady.
Mainly painted with Corel and altered a bit using Photoshop.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Marin and Gojo’s Valentines
Valentines Day will be here in 9 days, so I want to make some paintings to commemorate the day. We’ll start with a set of paintings of Marin and Gojo going on a cosplay shopping [secret date] orchestrated by Marin of course.
I sort of had the main idea right from the start of how I wanted the set of paintings to look. Mainly that I wanted to make three. As I was working on the second one I decided to try out a second facial expression for Marin and that would eventually be used to make the second part of the three part set of paintings. It was done entirely in Photoshop except for the sparkle effects on the third painting, that was done using Clip Studio.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Naoko Kawai UNbalance
An anime version of Naoko Kawai’s UNbalance cover of her 1983 single (if you get the chance check it out).
For this painting I again went for a flat painting style but added in color variations that dealt with shadows and translucence. I still wonder if I should add highlights? will have to try it out at some point. The metallic arch was surprisingly simple to paint.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Akina Nakamori Prologue Static
Akina Nakamori’s anime cover for Prologue, her debut studio album. I of course went for an 80s anime painting style. The static really reminds me of the cellulose that was noticeable in the old airings on tv back in the day and on old prints of classic anime. When I see it appropriate I really like using the static filter effect that Photoshop contains.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Momochi Pixel Art
For the first painting of February I will upload some pixel art of Momochi. The one with the yellow sweater is from her photobook “Momo16 Momoiro”. It was painted using Pro Motion Ng.
And the other one with the crown is from a promotional photo for the single “Cha Cha Sing”. This one was painted using Photoshop. Photoshop had some advantages but despite painting with the smallest brush size, Photoshop couldn’t pain only one square so it tended to add blend it’s colors onto the surrounding squares. It looked cool when the size was 36×36 pixels wide, but when I enlarged it those colors melded together and created a mess. Luckily I could fix this by choosing the resizing option that chooses the closest color so that the pixels remain intact. This did have the repercussion of messing up certain areas so I had to paint over it again using the wand and square selection tool to fix any areas that had to be retouched. Sadly I save over the original pixel art which I could have enlarged and screengrabbed but that’s just the way things turned out. One other thing that Photoshop has over using Pro Motion is that I can use any colors I want, although I’m sure people like pixel art since people use the limitations of the colors to create cool effects and interesting ways of dealing with said limitations. Personally I like both.
Hopefully I can do some more pixel art work later on.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Punishing Gray Raven Nanami Contest Entry
My contest entry for the Punishing Gray Raven illustration contest. This painting is for the fan art category. While looking at the designs, I was really drawn to Nanami. It seems that at some point they changed her design from the promotional trailer of her and what is now Nanami Storm. I really like the cat ears motif so I decided to go for that version of her costume.
When I finished painting and was getting ready to upload my entry I noticed that there was reference files of Nanami and the other characters from different angles to help in understanding their design. All in good quality… Because I didn’t notice this, I went around the internet and took low quality screenshots from Youtube videos. There is another category where I can design a different variant for one of the characters, haven’t yet decided if I will do it though I am tempted.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Akira Bike COLOR
This is Colored version of the line art I uploaded yesterday. Overall the painting is done using solid colors added in layers, except for the lights (headlights, tail lights and console lights). For those lights I used the outer glow Layer style. I will at a later point actually add a background and add other elements to it, but that will be at a future date.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
WalkMan Lineup Color
Here is the colored version of the walkman drawing I made on Friday. I wasn’t really planning on makin a reflection like in the reference photo I used, but when I decided to just give it a try I noticed that it wasn’t that straightforward. Because the Walkman and cassettes are at an angle, I had to cut the base painting into different sections and erase certain sections. The effect isn’t completely clean but it does do the trick. The line art was either removed, used multiply or color burn. Color really completes it.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Kiki and Jiji 90s
I learned about the using the filter abilities that Photoshop offers, one of the options is grain, which really gives off old analog TV vibes. I’ve done something like this before when I painted my Saki Shimizu drawing.
Which can be seen here: https://darkcloudxero.com/2020/12/15/otona-na-no-yo-saki-shimizu/
For this painting wanted to do something more flat, but in the end I felt it would look better with some shading. I feel that if I did want to use super flat colors, I need to make a simpler design for the line art. I think I will make that my goal for tomorrows piece.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Bernie Sanders 3.0 You Can (Not) Give Up
I’m always a bit late to this things, and seeing how fast memes live and die these days, one day is already too late. But I still wanted to make my contribution to the wholesome meme that sprouted from Bernie’s ever so sensible presence. What I like about him is that he not only talks, but he also walks the walk. He is a man of action and someone who leads by example. My brother said it would be funny if I drew him like Gendo Ikari from Evangelion, doing his signature observation pose. I don’t like Gendo much, but I have to admit that the guy emits a strong and confident presence. It’s good to see that Bernie is still ever so ready to get right to work for the people of this country.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Sleeping Friends Buono!
The line art was first done for inktober 2020 day 21. This painting was done on Sunday but decided to upload today. For this painting I decided to go for a simpler anime style which can be quite aesthetically pleasing. I wanted to add a good amount of detail but still keep it quite simple and not over work it. I really like this image from Kiss!Kiss!Kiss! I believe this is my second time drawing it but first time painting it. It was a relaxing and pleasant experience.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
Blood stained gift for her future
This is based on a drawing I did way back in (at least from a quick search) 2016. At the time I was completely new to digital painting or using colors really. I was more into drawing and was really struggling with color. I seriously thought I could bypass that issue by focusing on the values using my pencil and then hoping that Photoshop would deal with the colors on it’s own. Of course, nothing is ever that easy.
You can see my past attempt here:
Traditional X Digital (Color) IV II Final
Actual Lelouch final
I can proudly say I have made some progress in the last 4 years.
I used the line art as a quick map of how I wanted to set up the painting, but overall the line art would be left out. Once I had some reference photos of how castles and the sky could look like I began painting. I started with the castle first and that took me a while since I kept working with the way I believed the shadows would look in my scenario. But I made the mistake of not painting the sky so I could figure out what colors I would eventually end up using. With a bit more experience I should be able to figure this out in a couple of minutes but setting up the lighting for the background took me a couple of hours. Once I was satisfied with what I had, I then began working on Lelouch. But since the colors for the background were dealt with, getting his colors was much easier. Dealing with him did have to be finished today though. I want to be fast enough to paint something like this in at least one day, but for now it is taking about two days. For this painting I decided to use the spray paint for the sun’s lighting and in some sections of the clouds and the castle. I seriously should use it more since it made the effect I wanted much easier.
My brother has recently started watching Code Geass for the first time, so when I asked him for a suggestion of course Code Geass would be the option. I figured that would be a good excuse to retry doing this painting.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
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