Meet the New Guys!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

You know, I've been in a biiiiit of a bind. My laptop's touchpad suddenly stopped working. In the middle of typing as well! Thankfully I have my trusty tablet to act as a mouse, but....well, I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. It certainly makes typing rather awkward on some apps, since it seems convinced that I want to draw rather than type. So with that in mind, I may end up being without a computer for a while if its something to do with the hard drive and not a software issue. Assuming I don't just settle for a USB mouse instead.

That being said, my overall ability to do art hasn't been effected, so I do have a couple of things I can share with you today that I've worked on over this week. So, the first was a character I had actually made a while ago, but had recently given an upgrade and a spruce up into digital. He is also a character that, like Ankoku last week, I did entirely digitally.

The sketch ended up being far more clean and how I wanted it than with Ankoku as well, resulting in a fairly simple base sketch:

The actual line art to it didn't end up adding all that much in comparison, though it certainly cleaned up the sketchy lines and added colour to him. The only bit I was truly unsure of what I would do with was that crystal floating over his hand, as I was unsure if it would continue to do so, or if I was going to have it laying in his palm instead. Due to that, I ignored the crystal part at that time and instead worked on my line art and colour, only adding in the crystal later when I thought it might fit either of my thoughts.

So, this is Ichimatsu!

As usual, the better quality version can be found on my DA Page, so feel free to give it a looksy! :)

I actually really enjoyed drawing Ichimatsu, and for once its not just because the hair was fun. lol. In fact, I think out of my most recent full bodied images, this one ended up as my favourite. I will admit though that the crystal did give me a little trouble. That in mind it is something I should look up on more in how to draw. If I can get it right, it could make for some interesting backgrounds and such, especially considering what some of the dream worlds in Dreamwalkers could be like.

That being said, my second character ended up utilising an element I have only recently been experimenting with - fire. Specifically dark fire, though, which I already had an idea would end up even more difficult in comparison to the blue fire I used in the Nogitsune picture I did.

Unlike the previous image, this started life as a random sketch I did during a break at work.

As you can see, it was rather rough, especially in his expression, but this ended up the basics of what the character Shingetsu would look like. I was hoping that his semi-floating appearance would be interesting to make a couple of dark flames hovering around him as well. So, I went forth to do my digital version when I wasn't at work :) and Shingetsu ended up like this:

Of course, for better quality version, usual rules apply

Admittedly, a friend joked to me that it seems that I seem to have learned what colours fit together from Avatar: The Last Airbender...lol! But considering his dark fire abilities...Well, at least I chose fitting colours, no matter how much by accident. On the note of his fire, though....Eh, I have mixed feelings. It didn't come out as well as Nogitsune's blue fire, but if I can find a way to perfect my technique a bit more, its possible that I can make those neater at least. For now, though, I suppose I could always pretend dark flames give off a lot of smoke. lol.

I'll admit I have no particular set plans for who or what I might draw for next time. It will all depend on what I need to do to fix my laptop's current issues. I will, however, do my best to try and do something interesting for you guys, though, so please look forwards to it!

Until then!

Tara

New Character: Ankoku

Hey Everyone! Welcome back!

This week has been a bit all over the place for me. But despite all that, I did manage to get a character design done, and am planning out a few more, mainly where positions are concerned, since I'm doing my best to get used to different actions again.

The first thing I did was a female character who I call Ankoku. The name one of the words for Shadow, specifically word associated with gloom, blackness, darkness or obscurity. The character themselves has the power over a type of shadow magic, allowing them to create 'solid shadows' that can be used in a variety of ways. The dress that they wear is one of these in the story she is used in, though she does eventually change to a normal black dress.

Her hair style originally belonged to Mizuki in the Pandora Comic, but as said comic is getting a style update, including eventual hair style change, I saw no reason not to recycle it to here.

The image of Ankoku was actually done entirely digitally, which is somewhat new for me. I admittedly do prefer to use a regular pencil/pen and paper for my base sketches. However, I thought that, especially if anyone ever wants sketched digital commissions, I should get the hang of doing that as well. 

Where digital sketches are concerned, I did it more in bits than I might do it when drawing it traditionally, starting with a skeleton of lines and circles, then a basic body shape, then adding the clothing and hair to it, before finally adding the details that would become the final base sketch for me to work from. The final sketch ended up looking like this:

As you can see, its…..well, very rough as I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do with it. Not to mention her head looks a bit broken.

(note that this is actually a collection of the sketches on all layers put together. I thought you guys might be interested to see some of my thought process that I went through, which is why this sketch in particular looks so all over the place, rather than a final sketch that would be exactly what I would refine into the true line art. Especially when you compare it to what I end up with when I finish. Hope this helps to see a tiny glimps into my very strange little mind! :D)

Thankfully, with it being digital, I could work on it a bit more, adjusting the head position, etc. What I ended up doing was actually completing the head on its own before the rest of the sketch. With that done, I then adjusted the head position, so that it no longer looked broken on her neck. That done, I then continued with the rest of the digital art, deciding what to do with the right arm that I had been struggling with and finally ended up with this complete image:

As usual, the full, higher definition image is over on me DA page, so go check it out there :)

All in all, Ankoku herself came out pretty well, though, admittedly, her dress could have been better. I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted the dress to be made of her shadows or if it was a normal dress. In the end, I went with 'normal dress' until I could decide how better to show the 'shadow' aspect to it. Though it did leave her dress very….uh….floaty? Lets just say its really light material and she spun around really fast! Lol

As mentioned, I have been working on a few other things, mainly positions and the likes, but next week I should have even more character designs to show you guys. I hope that you'll enjoy!

Until next time!

Tara

Full Bodied!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

I know that in recent times I've been rather focused on those portraits of characters that it almost seems like I never do actual character pictures, head to toe any longer. Well, I decided to change that up a bit and do a few full body character pictures. I also did another slight experiment too, but more on that later. Firstly, about the two characters I ended up drawing, Nui and Nogitsune.

So first, Nui. With Nui, I started off with a pencil and pen sketch (which is what I normally do, even with my digital pictures. It makes for a steadier hand for me)

So, despite the slightly Japanese name, Nui was actually not based on anything Japanese at all. The name was actually a bit on an in joke that just ended up sticking. Rather, Nui is from a more fantasy based story, and, if you catch the very tiny detail, it might be obvious that Nui is also not quite human.

I thought that the sketch came out quite well. The only thing that really bothered me about it was that foot. I swear it looks broken, but for some reason I couldn't fix it on the sketch (before I added the pen, that is), but since I was going to do the rest digitally, I thought I would have a bit more room to play around with it and deal with the perspective issue, so the poor character wouldn't have to suffer a broken limb. As such, I moved onto the digital stage! 

As you might notice, he no longer has a broken ankle! Huzzah! Though admittedly I did have a bit of a time getting the perfective on it. It is still a bit more flexible than his foot....probably should be, but it at least no longer looks like its being held together by boot leather alone.

If you want to see the full version of him in higher definition, check it out over on my DA here.

I think my favourite bits to draw on him was his hair and his sash. Both I think came out pretty good. The only bit I'm not sure about on the hair is that cowlick. It feels a tad bit too far back. Otherwise, it came out pretty well.

The next pic I did was one that also had something of an experiment in it. But firstly, lets actually talk about Nagisa themselves.

So, Nogitsune Nagisa is, in fact, a character I have drawn before, in.....mostly full body (Mostly cause their feet were hidden due to their clothes. I actually did a blog post about it a while back, in fact). But, as said, some bits were missing, and it was more to showcase their face, which is rarely actually shown in the story. In fact, the fox mask on that picture is more often seen as their 'face'. As such, I decided to do a full body of them with the mask on. As I had drawn Nagisa from the front before, this time I did a slightly different angle to show the character's nature somewhat as being somewhat secretive. So showing them looking over the shoulder from behind seemed a good idea to me. 

That said, this was how my sketch turned out:

There were a few things I wasn't sure about here. The first was their hand that is near their mask. The second was less where it was and more what it was. The hand placement seemed awkward, but as I drew this directly in biro, I didn't have the option to adjust it until it hit digital. The last was actually because it was digital that I worried. I've.....never actually drawn fire digitally before. It might not be too much of a surprise, since that element hasn't come up for me in the last few years since I picked up a tablet.

Of course, there are tutorials online, so I thought it wouldn't be too bad.

....Uh....I thought. It might have just been that I wasn't typing the correct words in a search engine, or I just couldn't find what settings I needed, but I just couldn't find a fire tutorial that worked on Clip Studio Paint. I found some for photoshop, but unless the keys needed were under a different name I couldn't find them for the life of me. As such, I had to experiment to make the blue fire I needed for my pic. So, what did I end up with?

Here:

It's a bit hard to see at lower resolution on a white background, so here is a link to where it is on deviantart, where the fire is a bit easier to make out.

As you can see, I fixed the hand into a different position. As for the fire, essentially what I did was make a blob of colour, use the finger smudge tool, then on another layer, with add glow, do the same, then repeat a third time with a smaller blob. I actually thought it came out pretty well for a first attempt ever at doing fire I an experimental manner at that. Of course, if anyone has any pro tips for it I'd love for the advice!

The fire was pretty fun to do. But one again, my fave part was the hair. I'm really starting to have fun with it now I have a new way of doing it. It doesn't seem as flat as hair used to look on my pics. I'll admit though, that Nogitsune Nagisa is one of my favourate characters to draw. They're just so.....flowy. lol

Anyway, that's all from me for now. I'm going to do a few more full bodies to go with my portraits to give some variation in my pics, so I hope you enjoy them!

Until next time!

Tara

Two For One!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Last week I promised two portraits I was working on instead of just one, and I aim to deliver! So, this time I worked on two of my younger characters, Magetsu Shinta and Tatsumaki Shinobu. However, one of these pictures I decided to use as an experiment on a style I've only used twice, both times for non-human characters. I wanted to see how it would look if used on a person instead.

But first, to look at my regular style one.

So the character I decided to use my usual style with was Mangetsu Shinta, the male of the two sketches I showed at the end of last week's post. And this is what I ended up doing with that base sketch:

(Or for a higher resolution one, check out here)

So, Shinta actually came out pretty well. I think the way his hair, especially, came out well. It was pretty simple, but with enough detail that it didn't look awkward as it could have done. I think the bit I wasn't happy about was possibly the shadows around the neck. I just couldn't get this to work properly. But otherwise, Shinta was really interesting to do. I also tried to put more detail into the headband's (well, neckerchief in this case) metal plate to look a tad more metallic. It wasn't.....quite there, but I thought it was probably a good start. I definitely made note to work on that a bit more for the next pic.

Speaking of next pic, the portrait of Shinobu I did end up looking at the metal plate a bit more, but more than that, Shinobu was the one I decided to try the no line art approach to. Well, I say no line art, but rather....minimal, I guess? Only around the eyes had any line art on the end)

Anyway, so this is how my experiment turned out:

(And for Higher Resolution, click here)

So, I have some mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it came out a lot better than expected for a complete experiment - the metal plate came out pretty well! But some of the parts of it I think needed a little different approaches to them, such as the eyes, which are still a little more 'line art' than the rest. I think though, that for complete guess work, though it did come out well. But I certainly has a lot of work to go to make it a bit more polished.

Tutorials ahoy?

But if I can get it right, that does mean a new art form I can play around with. I'm sure I'll be revisiting this type of art again.

One thing I've noticed lately is a lot of my art has been very.....portrait-y of late. So, I think I'll be having a look at doing some full body pics to test out different poses and possible dynamic looking movements, if only to get into the practice for some action scenes in Dreamwalkers. So, that is what you have to look forwards to, along with my continuing portrait project. Wish me luck!

Until next time!

Tara