No January Spotlight

This has been a very busy/crazy month in my life.  I haven't been able to spend much time illustrating.  I was about 65% done with my second illustration a couple of weeks ago, and I lost 90% of my progress in an instant.  It was very disheartening.

Though I resolved to push forward, life hasn't granted me much opportunity lately to actually illustrate.

Right now I'm working on two illustrations.  I'll try to get back on track next week.

So in lieu of my monthly spotlight, I've decided to upload the stages of my illustration process based off my most recent work.

This week's illustration...

I was hard at work on my latest illustration.  Unfortunately, the app I use on my tablet crashed and lost 95% of the work I made.  I still have the rough outline, but I had just started on the shading when the app crashed.

It's a very devastating blow.  There's nothing worse than losing all of your progress in any medium.  It will take me a while to recover and get back on track.  I haven't decided if I'm going to redo my lost work, or simply start a new illustration outright.

Super Vegeta VS Semi-Perfect Cell

This one was a lot of fun to do, between the Super Saiyan aura, drawing Cell, and drawing buffed-up Vegeta.  I tried to be very dramatic with the highlights and shadowing on Vegeta considering the aura, but I think I could have gone more dramatic.

Admittedly, I drew the picture with a reference image which was a still shot from the show.  Most of my drawings are purely from my imagination.  However, I've noticed a slump in my abilities.  Back in my youth, I drew about 50% of my pictures with references, and my drawing skills in general always consistently grew.  In my adulthood, I've noticed my skills only gradually improving.  I think it's because I rarely use references, foolishly thinking that all professional artists never use them.  So for the time being, I'll try to do more reference-based work.  I'm hoping that by this time next year, my non-referenced-based work will have improved accordingly.

Super Vegeta

Here's the first new illustration to kickstart 2020.  It's already off to a roller coaster start for me, personally, but I won't delve into that.  Here's Super Vegeta standing all proud-like.  His proportions ended up being more normalized (longer) than Akira Toriyama's style.  I want to say it was on purpose....but it wasn't.  Either way, I actually like how it turned out.

Month/Year/Decade-end Highlight

To cap off each month, I've decided to do an end-of-month highlight on my personal favorite pieces of art that I've done for that respective month.  I suppose I'll also do year-end highlights as well.  But considering that this site started less than a month ago, the month/year/decade-end highlights will all be the same!

Anyway, here is my favorite piece that I've done this past month/year (that I've submitted, anyway).  Happy New Year's, everyone!  I look forward to seeing what 2020 and the new decade has in store for me, as well as this site!

Christmas Bonus 1/?

Merry (early) Christmas.

Here's an illustration of Magus from Chrono Trigger.  Easily my favorite character from the game.

I've always had a hard time drawing Magus.  I can't quite pinpoint what it is, but something about his face and jawline always throw me off.  Yet, (especially in the anime cutscenes) he looks strikingly similar to Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z, someone whom I draw very frequently with ease.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with this drawing.  A few things are off, but I'll live with them.  I spent over two hours last night reworking his head.  In the original drawing, his head was way too big for the rest of his body, but I didn't realize until I had colored everything.  I love ArtFlow as my mobile device drawing app, but it does have its limitations--one of which being that I can't select and edit multiple layers at once.  So the outline layer and the various flat and shading layers all incorporated in his head had to be reworked independently.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Son Goku, Super Saiyan

I had fun drawing this.  I also tied something different.  Instead of starting straight away with the skeleton, I instead drew a very loose abstract of what I wanted the character to pose as, then layered the skeleton on top, ending with adding in details, checking for proportions, and finally, coloring.  Overall, I'm very happy with the results.

Some more sketches

I've just been tinkering around with some new techniques.  This is an original character of mine.  I don't have a name for her yet, and this is certainly not her final design.

I'm not thrilled with the body suit design.  It's gone under many different iterations over the years.  But I'm really liking the hair, which is something I've struggled with in female and even male characters for years.

Another quick illustration

Another Zero. Is quick and sloppy, but I had fun doing it. I've also figured out how to transfer works between my phone and tablet via the cloud, so if I start a project on one device, I can resume it on the other. The process is a tad bit cumbersome, but nothing too extravagant.

Quick Sketches

Just posting a couple of quick sketches.  I've been watching some recorded streams from Jim Lee lately, and have been trying to incorporate some of his tips and techniques into my style.  I'm looking how it turned out, but definitely need more practice.

In other news, I've decided on a new, more permanent web house, but I'm going to wait until the new year before I take the plunge, since I'll be paying for it (Blogger is free, but it's so very limited and buggy).