Xochitl and her Macuahuitl from To Aru Majutsu no Index

Hey, another Mexican character in an anime! And what is this the second Mexican in the To Aru series? I really like her design and her powers. Sadly it was only for a few seconds. I wish there was a bit more screen-time between her and Etzali during episode 5… though it seems she has a run in with Saten at some point so I’m looking forward to that.

On another note, isn’t the pacing and editing of the third season of To Aru Majutsu a bit off? It seems to really be speeding through the story. And to make matters worse it seems like the characters have to really spit out a lot of exposition… cough, cough… that scene with Tsuchimikado going into that long explanation of what’s going on and how he defeated those robits … Σ(´д ` メ) Hopefully that all gets fixed as the story goes through but I am left a bit disappointed. It kinda reminds me of how they edited down Jackie Chan’s movies to only keep the action scenes

Anyway here is the drawing done using Stabilo pens and Copic markers.

references used:

 

And here is the process:

Hope you guys like it,

Hasta la proxima,

-NUBE

 

 

 

DarkCloudXERO Let’sDraw Episode 1 Misaka MIkoto cool eyes

Video is finally up.

School and work sure dragged things out longer than it should have…

Plus all the new opening and closing animations were pretty time consuming. But that was all groundwork that I can now just edit for the new videos. One thing that will probably set me back still is recording commentary for the videos. That I’m not used to at all. Hopefully I learn to relax when recording so that I can do it faster and with little mistakes. We’ll see…

These are the reference pictures:

cosplayer:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/40792752271/in/dateposted-public/

“cool eyes”:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/40792752651/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/40792753391/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39897964515/in/dateposted-public/

hair:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39897965105/in/dateposted-public/

I tried a couple new things for the way I presented the video such as having the reference pictures appear as needed and zooming in and out of the sections that I would be drawing. Hopefully that becomes useful for those who use my videos to learn how to draw (and entertaining for those who just enjoy watching these types of videos).

I think I will just draw for this videos (there may be special exceptions from time to time, it depends on how good and fast I become) so that I can make them quickly and specially so that I can work on my own projects on the side, which I haven’t really had much time to do (though I do have some that I want to show you guys soon).

As for music, I’m really into Vaporwave and Future Funk (specially City Pop which is where Vaporwave/Future Funk sampled their songs from). Just as this video was uploaded I got a couple of copyright claims for the music used in the videos. Which I expected. I’m not really going to rely on Youtube monetarily, I already got denied that ability since my videos and subscriber count weren’t high enough according to their new guidelines. So these videos are really more of a hobby. Hopefully people do learn from them, because I know I have doing them (in more ways than one).

In any case, the music can be found here (formated as Artist – Album):

Yung Bae – BAE :
https://yungbaebae.bandcamp.com/album/bae

Yung Bae – Japanese Disco Edits :
https://yungbaebae.bandcamp.com/album/japanese-disco-edits

Nanidato – Mobile Sailor Gundam :
https://nanidato.bandcamp.com/album/mobile-sailor-gundam

Night Tempo – Pure Baby Maker [Rewind] :
https://neoncityrecords.bandcamp.com/album/pure-baby-maker-rewind

 

Name of the songs are in the video itself.

That should be it for now, I’m currently working on a new project for school which requires me to read another book. But at least I don’t have to do another powerpoint presentation again so it shouldn’t be too bad (though I still have to write another paper about it). Aside from that I am going to be working on another video as well. I already recorded so it’s just a matter of editing which should’nt be too bad, it’s the recording of my voice that really gets me. But if I don’t do it I wont get better, so I just have to grit my teeth and do it.

As mentioned before I did work on some new art pieces, nothing really new, they are just practice pieces. I will upload and talk about them later.

Hasta la proxima,

– NUBE

End of another year 2017

So another year come’s to a close…

It sure was a rather trying one…

But I and all of you made it through, now lets push forward!

Just for the heck of it I made a quick piece using only pens with hatching and cross hatching.

The idea mainly came from watching this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9BYNcsej3g

So really I wanted to see what I could do. I wasn’t really trying to make a finished work, instead I wanted to see if I could make it look anything at all like the reference picture. It’s quite rough, but the general idea is there.

reference:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/27644882729/in/dateposted-public/

and the quick artwork:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/39391816822/in/dateposted-public/

Obviously my level compared to Ryoichi Ikegami is still quite low. The lines are nowhere as refined and the lines are quite rough and not uniform but! I was able to acquire the main idea. I was actually quite surpsided at how fast I could acquire the effects that I wanted. I feel confident even saying that it was quite easy. I wonder just how well it would look if I were to do so with cleaner and well thought out lines?

The best way to learn is by recreating pieces, so that is what I will try to do for this coming year (on all fronts).

Almost forgot to even mention this, but the people above are from a Mexican show called “El Chavo del 8”. A comedy show from the 70s that has trancended time and that each generation watches at some point or another. A true gem of Mexico. As for why I chose them, I mainly wanted to draw a guy since I have mainly been drawing females for quite a while. And well I just felt like it would be fun to do so.

Let’s focus a bit of time on the Christmas Misaka and Misaki artwork. I used a combination of Knicker poster paints (yes I made the plunge, I’ll explain this at some other time), kuretake gansai tambi (watercolor set) and pencils.

Here is the process:

rough draft-

MIsaka MIsaki christmas rough draft I resize

clean lines for final artwork-

MIsaka MIsaki christmas I resize

MIsaka MIsaki christmas rough draft II resize

MIsaka MIsaki christmas rough draft III resize

coloring process-

Such a shame about not showing the before and after of the frills on Misakas coat, it shows just how versatile Knicker Poster Colors are.

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As stated before, I’m still not done with it but this is the last state as of this writing.

Hasta la proxima,

Nube

 

Merry Christmas (and happy holidays!)

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.

MIsaka MIsaki christmas 2017 edited resize

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

“Academy City’s Railgun”

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).

10572127_1475732952696554_3467700917655481847_o

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.

Misaka Mikoto 2017 I resize

Then I define the lines I want.

Misaka Mikoto 2017 II resize

First coats of paint.

Misaka Mikoto 2017 III resize

Adding more details and color to the painting.

Misaka Mikoto 2017 IV resize

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.

misaka mikoto railgun no background resize

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.

Misaka Mikoto Final resize

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.

Academy city night Final resize

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.

Academy city's Railgun Final resize 1080

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

 

It’s been a stressful week… + NanDesuKan Report

This week has been full of tedious and time consuming obligations. I’m still not done but things have been progressing quite well. Of course I haven’t really stopped working and have some things to show you guys. One other thing to note is that last week was NanDesuKan so I’ll talk a bit about that.

Since I went to two conventions earlier this year I was having convention fatigue. I didn’t really feel like going but I did want to take some artwork for the Art Gallery section of the event. This time I decided to take only some prints so that I could sell them for a lower price in hopes that I could sell them this time. This year I took the piñatas That I made all throughout the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Some have actually sold already, such as the Popplio and Eevee and have been comissioned to make another one. So for NanDesuKan I was offering Pikachu, Rowlette, Litten, Mimikyu, Totoro, Jiji, and I made two new ones for this convention. Goku and Kuririn. I made them as kids wearing their attire from their training days under Muten Roshi (I even decided to make their turtle shells the day before the convention).

Just in case you forgot or haven’t seen them before, here are the piñatas that I took with me.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/32628223106/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/32628014416/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/32515650162/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/32628204896/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/31856433233/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/32546322051/in/dateposted-public/

Here are Goku and Kuriring that I made especifically for NanDesuKan.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37152283125/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36754812210/in/dateposted-public/

The construction of the turtle shells using foam board.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36963133466/in/dateposted-public/https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37152447945/in/dateposted-public/https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36316265314/in/dateposted-public/https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37152441715/in/dateposted-public/https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36316258924/in/dateposted-public/https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36316255544/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37152447945/in/dateposted-public/https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36316265314/in/dateposted-public/https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37152441715/in/dateposted-public/https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36316258924/in/dateposted-public/https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36316255544/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36316265314/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37152441715/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36316258924/in/dateposted-public/

And here they are with them on and painted (painted using spray paint). Tied with some garden ropes to emulate the ones in the series.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36338391343/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37152268315/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37152251955/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36316051194/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36754626810/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36754643650/in/dateposted-public/

This was the piñata side of things. But I prefer drawing more, so of course I took some of the new 2d art that I have been working on this year. Thinking back I was learning more than creating this year. But I feel it was worth it (I still have a ways to go, but I’m starting to understand things a bit more now).

My original plan was to show these pieces on their own and before the convention so that those who take the time to visit this site would get a sneak peak as a sort of special “reward” for visiting the site. But I got really busy preparing for the convention that I didn’t have the time (those two weeks before the convention were also quite stressful). Luckily I did get not only the new piñatas finished, but I also had two new artworks done in those weeks prior.

I took 4 art pieces in total this year.

I made a new piece with the prints of the legendary Pokemon from X/Y.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37153150535/in/dateposted-public/

I dumbly chose to do a Saber piece (from Fate Stay Night, I think). But that series can get rather complicated if you haven’t seen or played any of the games (which I haven’t). (There’s so many Sabers) So I really didn’t know what I was doing at all… This was one of the pieces I was doing right before the convention. Thinking back maybe I should have done something else, but oh well.

Done both traditionally and digitally.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37153226875/in/dateposted-public/

This piece I had been working with during the summer. I took a bit of a break and did some minor tweaks right before the convention though.

It is Misaka Mikoto from the To Aru series (will make a post especifically for it later).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36982080862/in/dateposted-public/

And the last piece that I offered this year is the other drawing that I made right before the convention.

This one is of Goku, Kuririn and Muten Roshi. (I will also make another post just for this one and talk about it more).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36982148692/in/dateposted-public/

So these are the pieces I took this year. Now for the results. Out of all the piñatas, only Rowlette and Mimikyu were sold. And of the 2d art, all of them were sold except for the Saber piece. And out of all the pieces only one went to the live auction, that being the Pokemon X/Y piece.

On top of selling a good amount of them this year, I also won an award again this year.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36982351652/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36982350522/in/dateposted-public/

s

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/37153546725/in/dateposted-public/

Seems like I won the 3D category again this year. Plus I also won the Video Game Room Art Show award. Seems like the 3D award was for the piñatas, and the Video Game award was especifically for Rowlette. With that said, I assured another weekend pass for next year.

Not too bad.

Sorry I haven’t really been posting much, but it has gotten a bit stressful these days. And now the future is looking a bit shaky… Heck even the sun and moon were kind of ominous when the outcome of the future was put on jeapardy.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36340111293/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkcloudxero/36756416450/in/dateposted-public/

A bit weird but won’t deny, they looked beautiful. (by the way, they look red because of the fires that were burning on the west coast.)

Nothing can be done except go forward I guess… ε- ( ̄、 ̄A) フゥー

That should be all for now, I’ll get back to you guys later.

Hasta la proxima,

-Nube

Mikoto Misakas and Tsuyu Asui Final

Finally done. This piece was done with a combination of both watercolor and Copic markers.

I wanted to make a drawing with a simple background, which I have a really hard time doing. So I want to now focus on these for a while so that I know how to do them. I was annoyed by how much time it took to come up with something. Keep in mind a design like this is quite easy, so finishing it in one day should be absolutely no problem. And yet the amount of time it took me to come up with something is excruciatingly slow. So really, it’s more of my mental capability to make up backgrounds that will need to be strengthened so that I can not only make backgrounds that fit with the drawing but are also interesting to look at.

Since it is done traditionally I have to rely on just my brushes and my markers. This is where I can run into problems if I want to make identical patterns. I could do it the dumb way of drawing it one by one, but that will take too long, it also wont be perfect recreations and really it would be really annoying to do it that way. So the best options are either making stencils or better yet make a stamp. Which is what I ended up doing.

And here it is (it’s made of an old eraser that I cut into shape with an e-xacto knife, sadly the eraser was too soft so it gave me problems when applying tint on it, and to make matters worse it started breaking off in the end):

Gekota stamp

So in the end I came up with a really simple design that was brush painted in a light green. From there I decided to make the Gekota stamp to make reference towards Misaka’s adoration to anything Gekota so that way I can connect why she seems to be entranced by Tsuyu Asui, definitely one of my favorite characters from Boku no Hero Academia.

Now, why are there other Misakas? To be honest my original plan was something a bit different. And that had to do with having the background filled with Misaka imoutos (younger sister, aka Misaka clones). For that idea I was originally thinking of making a stencil with the figure of an imouto, then reproducing it on the background to give it a somewhat cute/creepy mood overall. In the end I opted against it and went for a much simple design which funnily enough took me more time to come up with…

Misaka's dream XI cropped edited resize

In any case along with that idea I wanted to have Last Order the smallest Misaka and Misaka 9982 (the most cheeky of all the Misaka sisters). I remembered Last Order having those goggles so I quickly came up with the scenario where she would have like to make a trade for Tsuyu’s goggles which look quite interesting and of course Misaka 9982 being the voice of reason when it comes to Misaka Mikoto’s obsession with anything Gekota. I also really loved the annoyed facial expression she makes so I really wanted to recreate it.

Now as for Misaka Mikoto I really wanted to capture this catlike expression she makes whenever her curiosity and infatuation comes into play. And of course not wanting to make the drawing too simplistic I also wanted to add some creepy/cute love aura around Misaka. I also thought making Tsuyu look a bit more worried would be a good idea, but I remember that she rarely changed her expression and going back through the manga I was right so I decided to keep this simple expression.

The drawing looking a bit too lonely on the left side I decided to add a speech bubble that emphasizes her worry about the situation. What do you guys think it says? (Hopefully I spelled it right)

Misaka's dream XII FINAL resize

Before I forget I should also give it a title. The title will be: “Misaka Mikoto’s PARADISE and Tsuyu Asui’s Confusion”

It will be up as a print in the gallery.

And that concludes this piece. What do you guys think?

Hasta la proxima,

-XERO

Mikoto Misakas and Tsuyu Asui

I’m sorry that it is a bit too light but hopefully you can see it.

It took me a while to start this piece due to some things I had to take care of and me actually going out to see Colorado. But now that I have actually finished that I can continue and finally finish it. Here are two updates. Although I plan to make this simple so it shouldn’t take too long to finish it.

Misaka's dream I resizeMisaka's dream II resize

Ideas and rough drafts for the next projects

I have quite a couple of projects I will be working on, the matter now is how long it will take… I have three different pieces I have in mind but for now here are two rough drafts.

 

The first is a drawing of Kaname and Messer from Macross Delta. Based on episode 10, but after seeing episode 11 I decided to change things. Especifically for Kaname.

If you haven’t seen the series skip the next part.

(spoilers)

I had hoped that there was more interaction between Messer and Kaname but in the end it all turned out to be one-sided huh? But in the end it at least managed to inspire and light a fire in Kaname (as well as everyone else) to be more assertive and increase one’s ambitions to be better at what they do.

(spoilers END)

Overall I think I will only use watercolors for this piece… we’ll see.

Kaname and messer

Now for the next one I decided to do a Boku no Hero Academia drawing. Truthfully this series is amazing, easily made it to one of my favorites (if you haven’t read or seen it, please do, it’s an amazing series). Anyway, all the characters are likable and very unique. One of my favorite characters (although to be blunt almost all the characters are) is Tsuyu Asui. It really didn’t take long for an idea to pop into my mind as for what I wanted to draw. If any of you guys have been checking this page and my work for a while then you all might know that I am a big fan of the To Aru series. So of course a crossover drawing becomes logical. It’s a bit rough but here you go.

Tsuyu and Misak, Last Order and Sister

The idea is there now. Getting an idea and looking for information and references for details takes quite a bit of time, but now that that has been done, hopefully the final drawings go without a hitch.

Hasta la proxima,

-XERO

Update on upcoming artwork

Alrighty, so things did not go as planned and I ended up not posting this yesterday. Sorry. I ended up pondering what I wanted to have as the final piece and ended up going a different route from my original idea. Though not much.

Anyway. For this next piece I decided to do another Pokemon artwork. Since it’s Halloween I wanted something a bit spooky. So I went with an idea I had sketched earlier this year.

spooky girl rough draft resize

It’s a very rough sketch (looks really poor huh), and at this point I was still not sure what character to use. Seeing as I went for something a bit different this time, I can use  Nunotaba Shinobu from To Aru Kagaku No Railgun next time and go with an idea closer to the original (though I will probably change the pose a bit).

In any case, here is the rough idea of what I want. It’s quite simple but I want to play with darkness and light on this one. So it should be interesting. Assuming I do it right.

Pokemon Ghost Girl rough draft resize

Till next time,

-XERO

Yukinoshita Touma

There was a contest going on in Youtube where the objective is to combine two of my current favorite anime/manga characters into one. After much thought I came to a realization that I had way to many favorite characters so I took “current” to heart. In which case I chose Kamijou Touma from the To Aru series’. I like him a lot because despite being a “normal” human in a world where everyone is pretty much stronger than you, he does what he can to stand up for others and go into danger no matter the situation if it means justice. The second character is Yukino Yukinoshita from the “Yahari ore no seishun love comedy wa machigatteiru” series which is one of my favorite new animes. It’s just such a great series that really touches the human element of what happens at the high school age, and what our choices can bring to us. Yukino is definitely my favorite female character from the series. The writer really thinks about the elements that make her, well, her. She is really deep, despite having the qualities that we all know from most animes, she really stands out because of her character. Despite having her own problems and having strong thoughts about what people should do in order to do better in life, she does what she can to help them out in any situation.

In that way both Yukino and Touma are a lot alike. But of course they do have some differences where Touma is a bit more true to his feelings and Yukino is a bit more conservative with them. This creates a great character that has depth and secrets but will open up to hearing about your problems anytime.

For the character I noticed that they both used dark uniforms so I tried to blend some elements from both (can you find them?). I added a couple of details that showmark some of their interests and special skills. Also since Kamijou is known for his MISFORTUNE, I have Yukinoshita Touma with scraped knee socks. Both are very sure of themselves but not cocky. So I wanted a very serene and reassuring gaze coming from her (my character). The hair was something I really had to think about. I wanted Touma’s spiky hair, but since it is a girl I also wanted the silky hair of Yukino. So I went with a combination of both that makes her both really cute and like a bit of a tomboy that can get into action at any time.

I seriously like the way she came out. I might use this design for something else at a future date.

Hope you guys like it,

-XERO

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