Since were are past half way through this month, we are closer to Halloween now. I’ve been re-watching “My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected”. I never got to finish it when it came out. So hopefully this time I actually get to finish it. I’m really enjoying it (currently in season 2). In season 1 episode 8, Yui and Yukino both dressed in cosplay. The costumes used are what I used for reference in this drawing.
It’s been a while since I last painted with watercolors. Truth be told, I was really afraid to go at it. But after looking at a couple of pictures from one of my favorite artists, it gave me that push to just start painting. The artist I’m talking about (and that I have mentioned before a couple of times) is Little Thunder. If you haven’t seen her work I really suggest you go and check it out. It’s absolutely beautiful and definitely one of my artistic inspirations. I tend to overwork my paintings and not use color theory to my advantage. I still don’t fully comprehend it but I do know when colors look right when used with each other, so I have at least developed my color abilities to that level. Having said that, I still was guided by Little Thunder’s artwork as I painted.
I really like Japanese 80s music, and one of my favorite artists during that time is Naoko Kawai. Her voice and music are amazing and brings me joy when I listen to it. On top of that she is super cute. So of course I would do another piece of her. This time I wanted to try something a bit more difficult that had various variables, and well I just plain liked the photo of her in the Jeep. I was surprised I was able to finish the painting so fast. It was three days, (a few hours on Wednesday for the rough draft, Thursday I finished the rough draft and focused on inking, I then got all my courage and actually started painting today Friday). I really love the way watercolors look. It changes my art style quite a bit. I’m planning to do more paintings but October is coming so that means Inktober, plus I need to write three essays… It’s gonna be a rough month. But I’ll give it a shot. I was amazed when I saw Little Thunder finished a drawing/painting in 15 minutes. That’s a good goal to aim for.
Right now I’m in a Hello Project art mood, I can’t help but want to draw the members whenever I want to try out a new style. But I figured I should try to draw some new subjects, so I was looking through my reference folders and decided on drawing a Honda CR-X which I quite like. Once I had the line art done I decided to try out a new shading style which consists of just laying it down with parallel lines. I quite liked the aesthetic of this style. But once I was done I wasn’t too sure what else I should do with it. Then I started thinking about maybe implementing someone in front of the car. Then it hit me, I could use that Sayu picture I drew where she has short hair. Once I cleaned up the background I resized Sayu so that she would fit the size of the CR-X and well… I really love the way it came out. I guess things were just meant to be. Somehow that short hair and hat make her fit that racer look.
This is a study from Momoko’s photobook Momoko Momochi Zukan. I actually wanted to try something new but ended up trying to do a realistic take by using hatching and cross hatching. I wasn’t satisfied with the way it came out since some lines came out too thick for the shadows. But I figured if I thickened some of the line art and darkened certain areas to change the values and lighten the hatching I made for the shadows. And sure enough it worked. I could push this effect more if I added more shadows around Momochi. Maybe adding interesting hatching would give it a cool aesthetic.
Seeing as Kill la Kill was influenced by series like Sukeban Deka I wanted to make a painting depicting that connection. I also wanted to make as many summer paintings as I can before the season ends (finally). This is an homage to Yuki Saito’s photo. Which can be seen here.
Using references from the anime it self, I did have to make various changes to the body type and the hair a bit so that it would look more like Ryuko. Seriously, Ryuko has a tiny waist. As for the hair I wasn’t sure if I should have left it down or pull it up into a ponytail like in the reference photo. In the end I decided to try and figure out how it would look if Ryuko decided to put it up.
Was looking at my Japanese vintage ads folder and came across one for Grace Jones advertising the New Celica. After that I learned that she was not only a model but also an actor (quickly found out about her role in the Conan movie) and a singer. My favorite song of hers is “I’ve Seen That Face Before”. I’ve never worked with such dark skin tones before so I really wanted to give it a try. There are more blue tones in the reference photo but since I used a red background I changed the tones accordingly. While I was at it I also changed the pose a bit.
I attempted doing an ink drawing of Sayu with her short hair back in 2018 for inktober but wasn’t satisfied with the end result, so I decided to draw her again. This time I used a combination of both ink and digital hatching and some small manipulations to the diamonds below the table which were done in the wrong perspective.
Really love the way short hair compliments Sayumi.
It’s a bit late when I’m posting this so I will keep it short but this is based on the ad campaign called Yes Coke Yes. The reference used is one of the ads that Hayami Yu. I’ve been wanting to do some summer artwork and also utilize the 80s ads that I have. It has also been a while since I’ve done a simpler painting. It was a lot of fun painting this piece, luckily I managed to finish it in time.
I had finished the first draft of this painting a couple of days before but wasn’t truly satisfied so I gave it some days and had a go at it again today. I think it looks better than the first version. This is a study of one of her photos from her Momochi Zukan Photobook.
I wanted to try working with the more simplistic style again today. For my model I chose Momoko Tsugunaga and while looking for some reference pictures I came upon some where she was cosplaying as Rei Ayanami. Which in turn just turned into Rei Ayanami in the end. I don’t have enough blues in my collection of Copics so I’m a bit bummed that I wasn’t able to do much with her blue hair. Looking at my drawing there are still traces of Momochi which I like. At first I had Rei smiling but decided against it. The end result gives her an expression of noticing the viewer and glancing over.
It’s actually been a couple of years since I last used color pencils. I actually had bought two different types of color pencil sets before I guess I decided to move over to Copics. Now understanding colors more, but being out of practice with color pencils I was curious to see if I could even use them.
So for this drawing I used the Faber-Castell Pastel pencils >>Pitt<<. They are quite amazing, they apply to the paper quite easily and spread out quite evenly. But they also smeared quite easily and were quite chalky. Plus they didn’t really like getting layered. But if I planned things out correctly they worked out quite well. I like them, but they smear far too easily.