My Art, My Progress

Manga and Chibi art, August 2019 style!

Chipping away at those 10,000 hours! I'll never stop getting better at my craft!
My chibi webtoon, Not-So-Generic, has been such a motivator for me. I draw episodes as often as I can and get great feedback.
Here are a few of my favorite chibi expressions from this summer's episodes:

Because I've been drawing Not-So-Generic for 2 years now, I can see just how much my anatomy and style has improved! Here is a quick comparison between a 2017 chibi and a 2019 one:

And here is a chibi I just LOVE. I drew this wonderland-like character for a friend of mine on an artists (and novelists) forum.

Though I love chibis best, I also love trying out new styles and drawing, of course, manga style!

That's all for today friends!!

WIP anime bird fairy

I did the line art and then thought: Wait. I don't have to draw her cleavage for her to be feminine and gorgeous. I can do whatever I want. I can promote modesty. And she can still be beautiful.

I really love the quality of the line in this drawing. I love G nib pens because of their fluidity. For a while I used the turnip pen on CSP, but now I've returned to the G pen because of the LIFE that the variety of thickness gives to a drawing.

Turnip pen: Very uniform, great for control of line and width. Like a technical pen.












G pen: Wide range of widths without changing settings, gives depth.

Here's a better look at the colors and finished look of the bird girl. I had fun playing around with opacity and color vibrancy to give the dress a schiny look!

And last but not least, after consulting some experts, I found a gold, teal bird on google images. Never underestimate the importance of references and the internet's photo gallery.

Shading in CSP

I like to color in my character with the base colors instead of isolating the skin, working on that, and then moving onto the next section. If you start by filling in all the areas you can make sure the colors you chose go well with each other.

Only three colors are shown here, all about the same value. Because I make sure not to leave gaps in my lines I can use the fill bucket for my base colors, by creating a layer underneath my lineart layer, and selecting the "refer other layers" option on the fill bucket settings.

This allows the fill bucket to sense the lines on the lineart layer without having to actually color On that layer.

After selecting my colors, sometimes changing my initial choices, I add shadows. To give my characters a more "alive" and bright feeling, I try to use shadow colors that are deeper instead of darker.

For this guy I wanted a very warm color scheme, so both shadows and base colors have a lot of yellow in them.

And then I just touch up with some highlights! I use a LOT of shadows, but when it comes to highlights, more is less for me. So I just touched up his shoulders with a low-opacity yellow, and lightened up his hair with a light orange. 

To make his skin pop a little more I took the pencil tool and a orange red and lightly colored the tip of his nose, his elbows, and under his eyes.

Not So Generic

We've finally reached the end of season 2! A finale saying goodbye to my best friends, Prins. He's moving on a 2 year mission, during which he'll put away his normal life and hobbies to serve and teach others of Christ.

And I? I'm leaving too. Moving west for college! Season 3 will be my new adventures as a young single adult in the cold of Idaho :`D

Link to episode on my webtoon:

https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/not-so-generic/s2-end/viewer?title_no=79375&episode_no=85

A few of my favorite panels:

Check out my webtoon for wholesome, sad, funny, crazy adventures! :D

Sketch to Finish: Princess and Stable Boy

This is a quick Cartoon sketch of a princess and one of the stable boys. And some baby chicks.

I start out with a really light blue, and I use quick strokes. I stay pretty zoomed-out from my drawing so I don't get nit-picky about the details.

I'll switch to a darker value of the same color to stream line things, but I still keep it pretty loose.

Then I'll take black, or most often a gray-brown, and using the pen tool 10 pixels smaller than the pen size for the sketch, I zoom in and ink my drawing.

Just a basic one-light-tone-one-dark-tone color scheme here. 

And that's it! This one's kind of leaning on the cartoony side. I enjoyed doing it. :)

Chibis! Prom! Bakugou!

... not a very homogeneous mix, I know XD

Here are some of my arts! A few manga, but mostly just chibi characters.

My first try at Bakugou from My Hero Academia! First try at anything other than a squishy chibi Bakugou, anyway. :`)

EXPRESS the sadness! Ha! I love dramatic poses, as they really push my envelope, both in pose and level of emotion.

Chibi Kisses :3

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And that's all I collected off my dashboard for now! New art on the way! Sleepy time.

Robot and Girl

This is the first part of a 3 part wordless comic I've made! About a little girl and her beat friend, an electronic tutor gifted to her by her absent Uncle.

... If you want spoilers for how this ends...

Listen to Alec Benjamin's I Built A Friend.

How to Draw Action

Action poses are AWESOME. Everyone loves a good superhero comic. But drawing those action poses? That's hard. But action isn't just high-kicks, karate-chops and super punches. Every action- Standing, holding a pencil, or walking- has it's own rhythm.

Drawing a character in motion can be challenging. Here I've broken motion into two basic concepts: the Line of Motion, and Peak Force. These two concepts combined will infuse rhythm into even the most basic standing pose.

 'UGH,' you say, "I've already SEEN that." I have two answers: 1) Then do you do it? and 2) Great! That's awesome. Keep reading and you might find something else to add to your artist skill-retinue.

It's REALLY important to make bends and curves in motion, but they all need to come from the same point, the Peak Force.

The Peak Force is where the convex is at it's highest. That's where all the motion is coming, because that's where all the force is being exerted.

Line of Motion Vs no Line of Motion.

And now, you might think the one on the right is exaggerated, but it's NOT. You can only more clearly see there's no rhythm because it's a stick figure. I SAW someone draw a person "Falling" the other day, but really they were stiff as a board laying diagonally on solid air. THAT's how important lines of motion is. 

You don't have todraw a line of motion with each character you draw, but you should be aware of it. This will make your characters really stand out as living, breathing, action-ing people we can relate to and love. 

Here is a skeleton-to-character example.Back to Peak Force, in the third drawing, you can see that everything that can- Hair, jacket, headphone cord- is pulling AWAY from the Peak Force, "lagging behind".
Line of Motion is motion in the body. Peak Force is motion of 'everything else'.
Your two new super secret art weapons!!
Have you ever had trouble getting your characters to move? What has helped you figure out the rhythm for your poses?

Fan Art for Artists!

Here are some OCs/Avatars of some of the artists I admire! :D

This is an OC of a friend of mine on Nanowrimo. She creates some very beautiful pieces! My favorite aspects of her art are the way she draws noses and her backgrounds.

Check her our on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calamiteaa/

I redrew my friend Blank's AVatar. He's got a knack for drawing characters I like to draw! :`D

His Twitter: https://twitter.com/xBLANK_

This last one is Teo, an OC of my friend Purr, who I also met on Nanowrimo. She always has intriguing story lines and unique characters to fill her stories!

Her Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/the-missing-lynx/

Kubo and the Two Strings

Kubo and the Two Strings is a clay-animation film created by Laika Studios, an outlier in the film industry. I've always admired the dedication and the originality of their works, but my absolute favorite of their productions is Kubo.

"The film revolves around Kubo, a young boy who wields a magical shamisen (a Japanese guitar) and whose left eye was stolen during infancy. Accompanied by an anthropomorphic snow monkey and beetle, he must subdue his mother's corrupted Sisters and his power-hungry grandfather Raiden (The Moon King), who is responsible for stealing his left eye."

-From the Wiki

Today I colored a chibi Kubo, ready to face down his wicked grandfather! I love the colors and composition of Kubo's costume design.

I added several tips for coloring and drawing on Clip Studio Paint, or any digital art program, in fact, throughout the video! I hope you enjoy. :)