This is an edited version of the battle between Touma and Gunha vs Misaka who has been used for the level 6 shift project. I made the colors a bit darker and more vibrant. I also re painted a couple of areas to add more details, lighting, shadows and changing a couple of details.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I’m currently watching the To Aru Kagaku no Railgun T anime. I’m really pleased with it. Unlike with To Aru majutsu season 3, they didn’t rush the series and the animation looks really beautiful. There were a couple of shots that used cgi that were moving a bit too fast and weird at the beginning but it seems they got used to it in the later episodes.
I really like Sogiita Gunha’s character so seeing him fight right next to Touma is amazing. Because this is one of my favourite scenes I decided to paint it.
Surprisingly this piece only took me three days to do. I guess I have been improving…
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
This drawing was done on the 29th day of inktober 2019. I really like Shiho So‘s artwork. I first discovered it when Night Tempo was using it for his cassette releases. With the linework done it was now just a matter of coloring it in. I really like playing around with these bright pastel colors. Although it looked good just painting Misaka, I wanted to make a background for it that fit. After playing around I started to get different ideas like making it like a manga page with panels. Then I thought I would put in a perverse beastly Kuroko ready to attack. And then things started to flow from there. I used Clip Studio for the manga effects like the screentone and effect lines (what were they called again?). Just when I was about to call it finished I decided to write Misakachu with magenta, and luckily it worked out quite well. The painting it self didn’t take too long to do, it was just the small details and ideas that I came up with along the way that added a couple of hours. Still though, overall it was around 5 hours I think. Not bad. Once I have more practice with this style I should be able to work faster. Which I will do at some point since I really like it.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
So Christmas has finally arrived.
I was working on an artwork for this year and just now finally finished it. I will be making a background at some point but that will have to wait for next year. But for those who visit my site, here is a peek at it. (The print won’t be available till next year though).
Will talk and upload more photos at a later date.
My brother’s finished presents.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39265906372/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39265905482/in/dateposted-public/
Have a great time guys. Merry Christmas and happy holidays.
Hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I mostly finished the Misaka drawing in June 21 then came back to it on August 28 to make some minor changes. Moral of the story, I should have made this post a long time ago… Sorry about that.
The first artwork to get the honor of being the first in being painted with my new P.H. Martin’s paints is I believe Kaleido Star (assuming that the scanned date is correct, which says it was only by two days, weird). In any case, Ph. Martin’s are quite different and since I am still learnint to use watercolors in general they were a quite hard to understand at the point of making this art piece. But after learning a bit more about watercolors in general I should be able to do better next time I use them. (•̀o•́)ง
In any case, from what I have learned going slow is the best strategy when painting. Especially if one is covering large areas such as backgrounds (something I didn’t do). The reason I bring this up is because just like with the Kaleido Star artwork I mixed both traditional and digital. Mainly because I couldn’t get the color right from the beginining and well, ruined it really. Plus, because I didn’t stretch the paper (something I’m barely trying) the paper of course buckled creating even more problems. (*´Д｀)=з
After looking around my reference materials for To Aru Majutsu/Kagaku I came upon this cosplayer who did a spot on Misaka while doing a really interesting pose.
This is the cosplayer, which uploads her pictures on Weibo:
https://weibo.com/p/1005051873372180/home?from=page_100505&mod=TAB&is_hot=1#place
I would link the original picture but they get flagged and taken off. So to prepare for that I will upload it to my flickr (I hope that doesn’t become a problem).
Now as for the background I went through the episodes in To Aru Majutsu and screen captured locations of Academy City. I’ll put the screen captures on flickr in case any of you guys need them. But for now, these are the reference pictures I used.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36449217334/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36449162454/in/dateposted-public/
I could have used the background on the cosplayer reference picture, but I wanted to set it in Academy City. Plus I had (at the point of starting this artwork) recently seen To Aru Kagaku no Railgun with my younger brother.
With that said, here is the process.
First Misaka Mikoto:
I’ll start with the rough drawing.
Then I define the lines I want.
First coats of paint.
Adding more details and color to the painting.
Then I try to match the intensity and colors as close as I can with the original painting (the scanner leaves the scanned pictures very dull and lacks the intensity so I have to edit them afterwords). I usually do this edits and then I make another copy and multiply the second copy of the scanned picture to increase the details and colors.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37178825826/in/dateposted-public/
But since the background is blue I tried to change the hues a bit to a cooler color.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36516617344/in/dateposted-public/
With that done I prepare the actual subject (in this case Misaka) so that I can merge it with the background. Of course that means cleaning up and erasing the background. It sure is very time consuming. But it’s worth the effort.
Next I try and match the colors as close as I can so that they merge better and that the subject looks like it actually is in the backgrounds environment. Now, just to make it clear, I made these changes after I merged it with the background.
Ok so Misaka is done and ready, now on to the background. Academy City. More especifically the bridge where Misaka and Touma met on very important ocassions (if you’ve seen the series than you’ll know what I’m talking about).
First are the outlines for the bridge and the city scape.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36516910564/in/dateposted-public/
I’m still having a hard time doine dark color so I want to do more of them in order to understand how to use the colors correctly.
I had a good deal of trouble due to my low expertise, though this was a couple of months ago now, and judging by the recent painting I’m currently working on I have gotten better and am understanding the process a bit more. What I did know at this time is that I had to add layers, though I was going too fast and not doing enough variation in colors.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36556799243/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36516910274/in/dateposted-public/
So this is one of the things I had a lot of problems with, which is caused by adding too much paint. The problem is that the paint starts caking and adds a layer of shiny paint. Not only does it not look good, but it makes adding more layers harder since the paints don’t meld well together at all.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36516909754/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36516909304/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36516909054/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36516908844/in/dateposted-public/
One other thing I wan’t to make a note of is the city scape. My understanding of going from dark to light and vise-versa still perplexed me. So I added colors way to dark and made my work harder when I wanted to add the light haze from the city scape. So because of my inexperience the colors were not coming out like I wanted.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36516908504/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37369420005/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37179363296/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37369418745/in/dateposted-public/
Having the city somewhat done, it’s time to start adding details. Starting with the structure of the bridge.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37179361936/in/dateposted-public/
Then I decided to change the color of the lights and add the rivots of the beams.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37179364656/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37369427445/in/dateposted-public/
And this is how it looks like with all the digital edits and addtitions. Making it truly Traditional x Digital.
Now that I am satisfied with how it looks, next is merging Misaka with the background.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36517240774/in/dateposted-public/
And to finish it off I added some more blue hues to Misaka so that they merge better.
And well that is the process of creating this art piece. Doing them seperate is interesting and gives me the possibility of doing a “2.5D” artwork if I so choose it. But on the other hand it does require more work and also needs a lot of thought, preperation and changes when merging them. I’ll try to do a “2.5D” piece to see if it’s worth it or not. Time will tell…
Bueno, hasta la proxima,
-NUBE
I’m really surprised that this drawing took me so long to draw, but I guess it is expected since I decided to add some background this time around. The time accumulated for this drawing was … 19 hours and 10 minutes. In a way I find that astonishing, but believable since I was making up techniques as I drew. I’m surprised I didn’t get stuck and end up ruining the drawing. One thing I have learned though is that adding various colors to a certain object or objects will make it more believable and realistic so I made sure to go in with that type of mentality.
I’m sure many fans of the To Aru Majutsu no Index and To Aru Kagaku no Railgun know that a new series is being aired at this moment, it seems to be focusing on Misaka and her involvement with her sisters/clones. And I have to say, it is absolutely amazing. Both the story and the animation. I seriously wish more anime’s put in that much effort at least into the animation. In any case, this drawing is inspired by the fight between Misaka and Mugino Shizuri ( no. 4 as the strongest level 5, known as the “Meltdowner”). Their confrontation ended last week and it was awesome, plus it also left it open for some more “encounters of the level 5 kind” (yeah… I know, stupid joke).
Throughout the drawing I really did not know what I wanted to do yet. I just had a goal to draw her in a pose I haven’t seen before. So I just made things up as I went along. As I was drawing I decided to have her injured but still willing to fight, and I also liked the idea of having her fight outside (meaning I would have to draw a background as well). One thing I did want to include was her shorts. Usually I don’t like upskirts in anime/manga but because she always has shorts I find her to be a really awesome character that doesn’t feel the need to flash in order to be popular. I seriously feel that more female characters need to be like that. Plus her shorts are pretty much her trademark (well that and electricity, gekota, etc.). I did feel kind of bad making her bleed, but I feel that makes her look more vulnerable and human like. As well as making the situation look dire. If anything I feel the drawing only needs a bit of rubbing/blending in order to make it smoother (mostly in the sky).
What do you guys think?
Any Questions/Comments?
Hope you enjoy it,
– XERO
And so here is the second installment of my Biribiri drawing. I tried to take a bit more time on the coloring so that it would look better than it would normally do so. And truthfully although I believed I could take more time on it, it does not look half bad at all. In fact the colors are definitely blending much better. I’ll have to go ahead and work on it a bit more to make it even better but over all the whole idea is there. Until next time.
Hope you enjoy it,
– XERO
Biribiri… I wonder if any of my viewers are To Aru Majutsu no Index (or Kagaku no Railgun) fans. I remember watching this last year and immensely enjoyed it. and to no surprise I became a big fan of Misaka Mikoto. What can I say I have become captivated by the charms of the tsundere girls. What I like about her is that although she acts really mature and at times rather tough she is in fact innocent and incredibly cute. And of course let’s not forget that she has the power to destroy her enemies with a railgun just by using a coin, how cool is that? I seriously can’t wait until they finally make a third season.
So this is the first part of the drawing (just like my last drawing of Amu Hinamori), I’ll have the coloring video up next time.
Hope you enjoy it,
– XERO
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