The Nogitsune Trio! A Little Bit More!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

I've been a bit busy this week, not only with work, but also in the fact I've run out of room in my sketch book. Well, if nothing else, having hit and miss Tablet capabilities certainly makes sketching old school a bit more appealing. I have been on a shopping trip, though and now have a new sketchbook ready to go! Which is good, as I have actually been given a commission to do. Nothing to show for it quite yet as it wasn't too long ago I was asked, but essentially it's to make a design to go on a wall in a child's bedroom. I was given some examples and ideas that the person has in mind, so, with my new trusty sketchbook, I'll be coming up with a few and see if any of them catch any interest. I'll likely have something to show you guys in the coming weeks, too :) Just something to look forwards to!

For this week, though, around work, running out of sketchbooks (thus shopping) and surprise family visits, I had a go at the line art for the Nogitsune picture, though I'm admittedly a little unsure of it due to line thickness.

This is what  I had done:

Now, the main problem with it is the hair kind of looks a little too overlaid and not so much detail towards the tips, making them look a bit like leaves. I was also a bit unsure if the line art itself was too thick, or if I should leave it with a similar thickness and attempt to have it so the line art will be coloured, thus making it blend in a little more. 

What I am considering is actually using this as the more 'neat' base art, but redoing the line art so it will be a tad thinner, but will also have a bit more detail in the hair so they look more like strands and less like clumps. I think perhaps in this one I was following my sketches a tad too closely, perhaps. If nothing else, it did help me get my hand back in after so long needing to avoid using my tablet to fix its sticking issue. Despite this, having a neat base line art should be easier to work with than rough sketches, so it should make the true line art easier to add the smaller details too. As such, the 'mistakes' can be used to make something better :)

Alongside that, I did some research as to what the kanji would look like for Nogitsune, which will appear in the blank space. The Kanji is this: 野狐, using the combination of 野 - 'No', meaning 'field' or 'Wilderness' and 狐 - 'Kitsune', meaning 'Fox'. Together pronounced 'Nogitsune' or alternatively called 'Yako'. In Mythology, a Nogitsune is a mischievous or malicious fox spirit who targets humans. As mentioned, the three characters here are all shapeshifters, ad do tend to trick others, and could be considered malicious or mischievous, especially to enemies, so it fit. Its one of the reason I chose the fox motif for them. Still, a bit of trivia for you.

Assuming I dont horribly mangle writing the Kanji so it doesn't look so stiff and 'typed' when it is added to the image, it should be written in a line down the page in the space, perhaps borrowing a little from the style I used when I created the title for my Susanoo comic. I'll make an effort either way, but we'll have to see how it goes. If that fails....well, I'll just have to come up with plan B!

Until next time!

Tara

The Nogitsune Trio!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

While my tablet was being...iffy, I had an idea of a project I wanted to try. It mainly came about while I had a free moment at work and was messing around with a bit of scrap paper and a pen. As those who read my doodlebug post might have seen, I had been drawing one of the fox masked characters of the Nogitsune family as an idea for an icon or avatar. hat lead me to thinking of doing a picture showing all three known members of the family - Nagisa, who I've drawn full body in the past, Itazura, the one from the icon idea, and the youngest, Uta, who I hadn't really drawn before.

That in mind, I doodled a very rough Idea of what I was considering.

While I was sort of happy with some of it, Nagisa just looked like a lump and I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do with Uta. I was pretty happy with Itazura (the guy in the back) though his hair certainly needs a bit more work so it didn't look quite like leaves - just something that would be added in the digital version. This, after all, was just a vague idea.

With myself being....very eh about some of the characters, I redrew Uta and Nagisa somewhat.

The second attempt at just the individuals looked better:

As you can see, the bottom two looked much better and I was happy to use them with the initial Itazura. Admittedly, these wouldn't be the final appearances - Uta especially would need far more detail, but with the very plain mask, those details are things that could only be shown in colour and shading, otherwise it admittedly looks very flat.

Still, while my tablet is stil very hit and miss, I was still able to at least put them into the pattern for the final image layout, so I could then work on the fine sketch (which should add  in those details such as the hair strands better, and then the rest of it. This is what the sketches together look like:

As you can see, it looks much neater than the original concept, though it needs a lot of work. I have an idea of using the blank space in the top right to put the family name in there in the actual kanji (assuming g I dont butcher how its written by attempting to make it look like it was inked on, perhaps even have it on the blue flames that these guys can use. It depends on how cluttered or otherwise it appears once the line art/flat colour stage is done.

Basically, watch this space to see how it all unfolds!

Until next time!

Tara

Doodlebug!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So....I'm still having a few issues with my tablet right now, but I've just been doodling where I can, thinking up things to do once its all back to normal. Some doodles were just ideas to play around with, while others are ones that I'll likely be doing digital versions later on.

So, one thing that I doodled that I know I'll be playing around with and, hopefully, make a digital version of is an avatar/icon of a character related to a previous avatar I did before, Nogitsune. This one is another masked character from that same family, only this one in the process of removing their mask.

Sorry for the bad photo. Admittedly this is a very rough concept, the full version would look much cleaner and a little more in proportion. The hair would also have more detail as well and the background would likely mimic the flame like pattern the previous Nogitsune avatar did. Unlike Nagisa, the other Nogitsune character, I've not drawn this one very often, and I hope to play with the character a little, to do a full body pose for them as well, though, possibly based around this kind of pose?

Though it is only a thought. If I did try for a pose similar, I might add details to it and I'd certainly make the clothes flow better - I'll admit that doodle was done while I had a few moments at work, so its extremely rough, drawn with pen and on a scrap paper. But still, since these are just really basic concepts, and extremely rough versions, the big details can come later.

Beyond that, I was also just playing around with another character idea, once again very rough, but a portrait and a pose, though neither are particually finished, both, yet again, being quick sketches while at work in a free moment on scrap paper, but still, the sketches can lead to far better things digitally once I have a fully working tablet and time. :) 

While certainly no masterpieces, each are merely little seeds to play around with and will hopefully grow into something better with a little time and effort. Considering none of these took me longer than a minute or two at best while having no real idea of what to do in mind, it certainly helped to get some ideas flowing. But hey, even the roughest of things can give birth to something awesome, right?I'll definitely do a comparison of what an end product will look like from these idea sketches though. Hope you look forwards to it! :)

Until next time!

Tara

Character Sketch!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

First of all I just want to apologise for the delay in last week's blog, which ended up coming out on Tuesday rather than the usual Monday. I probebly should have left a message on the Monday to mention the delay. Long story short, it had been the 30th birthday of a friend and co-worker of mine and I was working on that day to allow her the day off, which meant that I couldn't post on that day. Either way, last week's post was the second part of the Old Verses New that I had been doing, so if you missed it and were interested in how that went, then you can find that post here

With that said, on to the actual post for this time!

So, this week I was mostly looking at sketches, mainly because of the ongoing annoyance with my Tablet that makes doing line art a bit iffy - the issue being that the pressure detection keeps playing up, sometimes registering pressure I'm not exerting, or refusing to believe I've lifted the pen away from the tablet. I keep being able to temporarily fix it, but...well, the issue keeps coming back, so I'm looking into things there.

Either way, I was having a play around with a new design for a character that is in Pandora, the joint comic that is being created in TanraStudios. After the first chapter, which is also essentially the pilot, we had a think about the character designs for some of the main cast. While it isn't yet my turn to be the artist for Pandora, I thought it best to start to get used to some of the new designs. It felt fitting that the first person I should look at was the one I first had the most hand in making, Mizuki.

Out of all of the redos, Mizuki probebly had the least changed, mostly a slightly shorter hair style and a change in one of her outfits - after all, it would be really odd to wear the same thing every day. Mostly, however, I wanted to get used to the hair style. The sketches that I did were an idea of her in my regular style and then, for fun, I decided to try a chibi version of her, which came out like this:

Originally, Mizuki's hair was more a chin length bowl cut, which, while it worked, didn't quite match an event that happened in her past involving hair. As it is, Mizuki's hair style and even her outfit are the easiest to implement in the comic itself without it seeming all that random, since currently she's only been shown in a shrine uniform and a field uniform used for apprentices. Both of these are fixed through story events. Still, this means by the time it's my turn to illustrate Volume 2, the changes would be made, so getting used to the subtle changes helps.

Honestly, I think I'd like to draw a few versions of chibi Mizuki. I like her hair style :)

Another character, however, who has yet to be introduced in the comics (but has been met in the additional stories on the TanraStudio blogs, however, has an extreme amount of differences from his initial hair style, though because he has yet to show up in the comic, we do have some leeway. Unfortunately, his hair style change is much more complicated, so I'm still getting used to those. Suffice to say, I'll definitely be showing the changes and progression in that a bit later on, once the character is less of a spoiler risk. lol Should be fun to see the hair style attempts though!

Still, I'll have to draw full body versions of Mizuki soon to get used to the change in outfit. Part of it is seen on these pictures, since it shows around the shoulders and upper chest, but I hope to be able to do digital versions of it. If nothing else, getting used to the folds and shadows in her clothing should be interesting.

...Assuming my tablet stops playing up. *Sigh* Well, either way, I will try! And if it doesn't stop playing up, I'll just have to look into a replacement. But I am determined to do this!

Until next time!

Tara