Artist's Block

I've been having some battles with my nemesis lately, and I scribbled this messy lil' comic in my sketch book. I promise it's not just me moping about my problems. XD Not quality work, just me doodling.

I'm on Webtoon!

This is a week late, but hey, I made it today, right?
Webtoons.com is a great platform for digital comics and I was introduced to it by my friend Prins, the creator of Presley, a slice-of-life comic with lots of laughs and puns. :P I've started my comic, Not-so-Generic, on Presley, and the second episode goes up later today! :D
Not-so-Generic is also a slice-of-life comic, inspired by my life. A little bit of drama, sarcasm, and chibi to spice up your day. ;)
Here is a link to the first episode. :)

How I use Blick Markers

I'm making a Presley and Not-So-Generic T-shirt with this, and I experimented with my markers to see what colors I'd like best. For this drawing I used a combination of Blick and Prismacolor marker.
I color in a pencil image because if you ink it beforehand, the markers will make the ink bleed and will smudge it on your drawing.

 There are two ways to color with markers. Darkest to lightest, or lightest to darkest. I choose the second because if you use the first method, the layers overlap and do not blend well together, and I like a softer look.

I use two markers for skin tone, one light, and one dark. For this I used blick's Beach and Light Peach. !st I fill it in with Beach, touch in the shadows and then go over them with beach to blend them with the lower layer. :)

 Again, I start with the lightest colors. You can always go darker with markers, but it's very difficult to reverse that and get lighter. To compensate for bleeding, do not color right up to the outlines. I usually color in the base( as shown) and then wait till it's dry to add shadows. This is because Markers tend to dry lighter than they first appear. ;)

I added the darks with the same method mentioned above: Light, Dark, Light. Ink the drawing after it's dry to forego bleeding. You can also use pen directly on top of the marker, like I did with the eyes.

Pencil-to-marker Manga boy

One of my best philosophies: What are friends for, but references and art models?? Also the lighting is kinda poor, sorry guys XD

 I use basic shapes to outline Sam. The differences between guys n' girls start here, with small things like widening the neck, and flat chest, and longer face. ( My older sister Bee says I draw them too long all the time XD )

There are specific details that make Sam, Sam: His hairstyle, the little kink in his nose, which I give attention to by added line width, high cheek bones and his eyebrow shape. When drawing a certain character, keep in mind what their tells are and what makes them who they are.

1st pic I darkened my final lines and gave his upper hair-thingy( what in the world do you call that?) volume and the buzzed part extra texture lines. 2nd pic I erased my guideline scribbles. ;)

 I used the 10, 20, 30, and 70% warm gray blick marker set for this. 30 and 20 for hair, overlapping for darker areas, 10 for his skin and 70 for his hoodie.

I finished by inking it in with a dollar-store( aka any old pen) pen to give it a raw look, and used more white-out than I should've. :P Used with discretion, white-out can really bring a picture together. ;)

Chibi doodle

It's been a crazy week with little time for art. :/ These are little doodles I drew by asking my siblings for one word to illustrate.

Illustrated Quote

Saw this quote on Pinterest and it really hit home!
'I am under no obligation to make sense to you.'

In my ten-year-old self's journal I declared that I would be a Farm clown when I grew up.
... I'm still not sure what that is.

3oTS- Icecream

I was inspired recently with some more ideas for Three on a Sidewalk( Mi comico espanol) and drew this up. This one is a follow up of El Camarero( 3oTS 1), where Chris finds his long-time best friend Isa with A GUY; and this guy is her BOYFRIEND???
3oTS takes place in Las Vegas and follows the story of Chris, your seemingly average guy who waits tables and is always late to everything, Isabel, a fun-enthusiast and aspiring screen-writer, and Robbie, the youngest in a family of models, football stars and talk show hosts.

Okay, enough with that, here's the English version for all of us monolinguals.

And then I've been working on a story where they all go to the beach together!!!.... and drama and lots of laughs ensue. Here are my sketches for the first three pages.

Coloring Chibis

 Today I drew a bunch of chibis and colored them in manga studios. I'm still learning, but this is the process I've adopted for now.

Our favorite chibi waiter, Chris. ;)

1st... well, second step, first being the line art, is to fill all the colored areas with the base color, creating a flat image; and yes, Chris is blond.

3. I usually apply them in this order: Shadows, details, highlights. The shadow and detail are interchangeable in my process, but I always apply highlights last to keep the impression that the details are 'under' them. I'm not sure if those are rips or flour stains on his jeans...

This is Zach- because what are friends for but references? ;)

Ta-da!! :P I hope to use Manga Studios more this year so I can get more comfortable with it and my tablet- so look forward to upcoming digital art posts! If you aren't following me yet, click here for my deviantart profile to see the pictures I don't post here.

Facial Expressions

The face conveys A LOT- and going even further than that, the eyes( and eyebrows) do most of the work. Yasuhiro Nightow, one of the co-authors of 'How to pen and Ink,' went so far as to say he started every drawing with the eyes because of their importance.

When drawing your character, you want them to express all kinds of things: Joy, hatred, grief- and you can't do that with one expression. Most tutorials always have smiling characters, but no one smiles all the time; not me, and probably not the star of your manga.

 This is Sam. Sam looks boring in the first one( and kinda paranoid... idk why). boring. But add some extra lines, change his eyebrows and he comes alive- a breathing, feeling character.

Every emotion has different levels. Is your character annoyed or is he full-blown furious?

This 'emotion gradient' (lol) shows different heights of 4 emotions. In the last one, the chibi goes from upset to despondent and in tears. Try varying your characters emotion palette to create a more captivating character. Neutral is BORING, but having your character running around screaming the entire time is too.

I created this chibi facial expression chart and tried to do a few unusual ones, like disgust and the second-to-last one which is kind of a secretive 'well, look who's here.'