I finally finished making my new lightbox so I can now transfer line art as many times as I want so that I can practice more traditional styles.
Since I want to use my lightbox but don’t like having to move everything over and over again, I think it’s time that I finally make the lightbox that will fit in the desk opening. For that, I will scavenge the light and parts of my old lightbox. It took me a couple of hours but it was worth it.
This painting was done using my Holbein Watercolors. I like that I can play around with the opaqueness and vibrancy of the colors. But it’s obvious that I need to practice more. As I was painting I noticed that Momochi’s left (to our right) eye was misaligned. So when I was done painting I modified it digitally. I was going to leave the background blank but decided to add some blue brush strokes to emphasize the cold temperatures.
I thought it would take me longer to paint it but once I started, the flow just kept going. I need to make more watercolor paintings. It’s strange, I was wondering just how much my digital skills would translate to traditional. But they are quite different. One main thing that it has helped me is with layering. As in putting in the base colors and adding more details on top. I’m no longer second guessing my self anymore. But I guess that is more a matter of getting more experience in general. Only way to get better is to just keep painting and thinking about what each technique and stroke means.
As for why I decided to make this painting. I love Oosama Ranking. It is quite an emotional series. Everytime Bojji and Kage overcome obstacles and keep pushing forward, I feel this massive feeling of pride for believing in Bojji and motivation to keep trying my self. Not a lot of series can do that for me. On top of that, the author plays around with clichés and little by little let’s us in on a great mystery that embarks their family and kingdom. The anime really did a good job of elevating the manga to another level. I of course really recommend this series as well.
Based on the drawing I made for this year’s Inktober for day 23. Because watercolor lifts the ink and makes the drawing really muddy, I traced it with my lightbox using only my pencil. I actually had to redo it twice because I was trying to erase the lines and graphite smudges before I started painting but then I couldn’t see the lines anymore… Erasing is ok on some papers, but not on the one I was using this time…
Luckily I still managed to finish the painting today despite a couple of setbacks. One of the biggest ones was the fear of messing up. It’s been a while since I last painted traditionally so that’s always a bit intimidating. But it’s always a matter of just starting. I almost messed it up right out of the gate since I didn’t completely clean the main brush I used (it still had some ink in it). The good things was that I could still lift up the affected area (it was the face…).
I really love watercolors. The look it has and versatility are just amazing.
This is a double feature of sorts. I will be doing two types of painting on this drawing of Goku which has been drawn with ink. I first used watercolors to paint Goku and then I painted him again digitally using Corel Painter 2020. The time between each was very noticeable. The traditional painting took and the digital painting took me only . I really have to think about how I advance after every movement. Meanwhile with digital painting, I seem to have more experience and I can make as many mistakes as I want since I can undo right away. But I guess that doesn’t completely transfer over to traditional. Although I can go as detailed as I want, it might be better if I develop a simpler style like Little Thunders which can be so versatile but not overworked.
This painting has made it clear that I should practice more with watercolors. One other thing I remembered, don’t ink your drawing if you will be using watercolors on it (this is only if the inks aren’t waterproof). Otherwise they will smudge when painting. Instead, go over the lines by pressing hard on them using a pencil (I mean I know this, I don’t know why I didn’t remember). Then erase everything. If done correctly, the lines will be visible even when painting over them. One you are done painting, the line art process can finally be done. This can be done with ink, color pencils or more watercolors.
I finally finished. I guess because there’s so many details it took quite a bit of time. But overal I like the way it turned out. The Holbein Watercolors do exactly what I want them to do, I don’t think I can go back to any other watercolors at this point. And this is using Master’s Touch watercolor paper which isn’t really that good quality (although I highly recommend it since it’s the best paper at the price range). At some point I should try painting on some higher quality paper which I tend to neglect since they are, you know, quite expensive. But I feel confident enough to try it now. Once I again I am using watered down ink for the outlines which works really good when applying color on top of it since it’s also translucent and reacts with the color one applies on top. This leaves it open to apply more color to the outline or ink to make it darker. Although I did add some shadows to give the background some 3dimentinality, I decided to make Miyabi’s colors flat so as to not overwork the painting which I tend to do. Doing so gives the finished painting a much cleaner look that pops out quite nicely (Thank you Little Thunder for showcasing your artwork! I always learn so much looking at it.).
I really love the colors that Miyabi chose for her kimono and her makeup. They really fit well with the background colors. I was planning to add the color variations to the kimono. But as I was playing around with the way Mars Violet interacted with the yellow mixture I used for the Kimono base color, I decided it would look best as a simple color. Hopefully I managed to replicate Miyabi’s beauty through my brush.
We are well into the New Year now, so I will now focus on some winter drawings/paintings before the season ends.
I’m going to be practicing with watercolors for a bit. I wan’t to see what I can do with the media. The first watercolor of the year is Momochi, using the first drawing of the year. I was a bit worried as I was painting but things were becoming more clear as I kept going. She looks so cute. It’s a bit of a shame the background didn’t get picked up by the scanner.
What I wanted to try out was Rumiko Takahashi’s classic style of painting. Looking at various artworks I decided to paint Ryoga in this way using only one color for each section of Ryoga and using only the saturation of the paint to make color and value variations. But only ever so slightly. But before I did paint it, I went over the rough draft with my mechanical pencil to darken and indent the paper. Once this was done I then erased the whole paper and painted with whatever graphite managed to survive and the indentations left behind. The effect wasn’t too bad, but it was obvious that I needed to add some type of outline. For this instance I decided to do that by using my Copic multiliner and a Stabilo pen for the darker areas.
Ahh finally, my favorite season has begun. Some days have already started to have lower temperatures but it’s still fluctuating quite a bit. Any way, things have been quite busy lately so I just made a quick painting to commomerate fall. Although I wish to make more. Oh wait Inktober starts tomorrow. I guess my time will be taken over by that for a month. The painting is a study of this photo of Sayu: https://www.instagram.com/p/CFE1mDOlsl4/
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.
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