Art: Dark Warrior Princess

So I bought Clip Studio Paint like....months ago....and I finally had a bit of time to sit down and play with it.  And by time I mean I'm pushing off the work I should be doing tonight and doing it tomorrow instead. Anyway this program is AMAZING.  Up until now I've been using Photoshop 7 and let me tell you, this has so many more options and tools and features....its just perfect for anyone who wants to do digital drawing. However there are still so many tools and features that I have no idea how to use.  

So here is the finished piece.  I suppose she is a warrior princess? She ended up looking darker than i envisioned as the drawing progressed so I made her a bit dark looking to fit the path the image was taking.  I honestly feel like my biggest wall is just trying to think of what to draw. I always just start drawing a face and depending on how that face looks, I turn it into a character and with a theme that fits it. Overall his was fun to do and I'm definitely more familiar with the program now.  It is probably going to take a lot of pictures and a lot of Youtube tutorial watching to master it.

Here is the original sketch I posted on my Instagram.  I put this picture into the program and inked and colored it from there.  If anyone is interested I'm using a 4 year old Wacom Intuos 4 tablet. It may even be older than 4 years old, I've had this baby forever and its never let me down.

And then I kind of had a sudden shock of artistic motivation and decided to attempt a full body pic with a background.  I'm actually pretty impressed with how it came out.  Something I absolutely adore is the 3D modeling abilities this program comes with.  I was able to move around a model until I had a pose similar to this that I could use as my reference to make sure all my anatomy and perspective was correct.

I also messed around with the background preset images to create this wasteland sunset thing.

Special thanks to Tonight We Ride by Unleash The Archers for the background inspiration.

Overall I am honestly very pleased with this.  I think for now I've reached my artistic limit.  I know there are things that I could possibly do to make this better but I just don't have the skill and experience yet to know what those things are.

DeviantArt Link

Art: Moon Goddess

I decided it was again time to draw something of value, so because I love my fantasy art I drew a moon goddess.  I think this method of shading is really what I prefer and I think I'm going to stick to it and try to improve in that style.The flowy energy power stuff came out much better than I thought it would, as did the moon! I've really been pushing myself to do backgrounds lately instead of just drawing characters on a blank screen.

The metal cuff on her leg is modeled after my ear cuff.  I thought she needed something extra so I experimented with making a metallic piece of jewelry. I also made sure to draw at least one hand, as I usually prefer to hide them or draw them in really boring easy to draw positions.  

Overall I think I learned a lot from this picture. Two things I need to improve on next time include adding more wrinkle detail to the clothes and improving my foot drawing skills.

Click here for larger Deviantart version

Subtle Anime Makeup for Cosplaying

So this past Sunday was J1 Con in Philadelphia.  I decided to go since I had never been to an anime convention before and I had a Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service costume leftover from last Halloween.

I thought maybe some of you would like to see how I subtly made my eyes look slightly larger without going crazy overboard.

I started with a very neutral eye.  I used Strange from Naked 3 on the lid and Haywire from the NYX matte collection applied very lightly in my crease.  Then I took NYX Milk and thickly lined my lower lashline.  Next taking a black liquid liner I extended my upper lashline down further and drew a wing.  Then I lightly drew a fake lower lashline under the Milk to create the effect of a slightly larger anime eye. Pretty easy and fairly cute without being obnoxious.

Here are some pictures from the convention!

Here is a super cute selfie I took before heading to the convention.

My friend didn't have a  costume so he put together a last minute Jiji outfit.  The look on people's faces as they asked where my cat was and I pointed to him was priceless. :)

Here is just me being really awkward because I didn't know how to pose or what to do when others kept asking for pictures.

This guy was hilarious. Omg. He was Sylveon, heavyweight world champion and never broke from character.  So funny.

These two made some adorable soldiers from Attack on Titan

These three had an incredible Twilight Princess cosplay.  They ended up winning best in show and they definitely deserved it.  Just wow.

Overall I had fun and I think I would definitely go to another convention if I ever had the chance.

Yuno Gasai

I recently finished watching Future Diary (Mirai Nikki) and I absolutely loved it!  If you like dark, twisted, intense, emotional, heart wrenching, violent, and exciting anime then I highly recommend it.  Because I'm on spring break and kind of bored I drew one of the main characters today, Yuno Gasai.