The Girl of Knowledge and Shadow

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So I did some fan art of my favorite character ever (outside of my own characters), Patchouli Knowledge. This purple lovely is a character from the Touhou Project series appearing in a lot of the Windows era games. 

There is just so much I enjoy about this character. First off she is a proficient elemental magician. I love elemental magic. I guess I just enjoy the ability to control the elements. I really like her design: her night cap, the crescent thing, all her ribbons, and purple color scheme. I actually really like the color purple and I think Patchouli made me enjoy the color even more. Bits of Lanavi was inspired by this character. 

Anyways this will not be the last time I'll draw Patchouli she is just too fun to draw. Also this is the start of my Touhou fan art series. Yeah I plan on doing fan art of all my favorite Touhou characters.

This was done solely in Sai while listening to Patchouli's theme, stage theme and a mess of remixes including my favorite remix. Weekend Clock ～週末に鳴る終末の時計～

Some of my favorite artist. Part 1

It's been awhile since I've done a blog post. So how about I go look back at all the artist that have inspired and molded my style to what it is now. I guess it could be an interesting insight for me and the readers here.

Let's start with my very favorite artist, Ryusuke Hamamoto (also known as Ryumoto) http://ryusukeworks.blogspot.com/ http://ryusukeworks.com/

Like I said above my favorite artist of all time. Thanks to this guy's drawing videos I've gotten a good grasp on how to color digitally and such. I just enjoy Ryumoto's sense of energy in his work and the vibrant colors he uses. He has a very east meets west kind of style in a way though it is more apparent in some of his works as opposed to all of his works. He has a very comic book feel as well being that he does like a lot of American comics. One last thing I enjoy about Ryumoto is how he has interacted with his fans. He likes to converse with others especially from out of his country. Though he doesn't do it so often anymore, he use to do sketch request on his blog. He actually drew something for me which was when I requested he draw Rachel Alucard from BlazBlue and I felt some connection because of that even though it was a very small interaction.

Next up is Takehito Harada. http://www4.ocn.ne.jp/~u1h/

He, was for the longest time, my favorite artist of all time until I came across Ryusuke Hamamoto. Now his claim to fame is that he was the character artist for the Disgaea series. The thing I was in love with, with his style was the way he colors. This painted line less style along side the petite body type (most of the time) he uses a lot for characters made his work stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately my taste have grown. I use to draw characters in a similar petite body style but after taking life drawing I just can't see any right from my past, anorexic characters. I still enjoy Takehito Harada's character design sense.

Chika Umino http://www13.plala.or.jp/umino/

Chika Umino is known for creating the manga Honey and Clover which was adapted into one of my favorite animes of all time. She is also the character designer for Eden of the East. I won't lie some elements of my current new style comes from her. Even the laid back down to earth feel in some cases. I think the most obvious design aspect I got from her work is how I draw noses which I really love.

Satoko Kiyuduki https://www.google.com/search?q=satoko+kiyuduki&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=zmW&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=7X1IT6K7LIiTiQKXiL3aDQ&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1150&bih=644 (because I can't find an official blog or site of hers)

She is known for her character designs in Yggdra Union and her two manga series G.A. Geijutsuka Art Design Class (one of my personal favorites) and Shoulder A Coffin Kuro. Geijustuka was adapted into a decent anime which I enjoy but not as much as the manga. I really enjoy her character design sense especially in her fantasy work. A lot of exaggerations like in the eyes or how characters with glasses would have them worn extremely low on the face but huge and round at the same time. I wish I could draw eyes like she does but I'm too use to making them tall and narrow. The round eyes I draw were inspired by her style as well as Ryusuke Hamamoto.

Alex Ahad http://skullgirls.com/ http://oh8.deviantart.com/

Alex is probably best known for creating Skullgirls, the awesome fighting game that is coming out some time very soon as of the the publication of this article. He has a style that screams "his own." It's a melting pot of his inspirations from east meets west to monsters and cute but still disturbing monsters. I wish I could draw like he does but my mind just can't accept me drawing such exaggerated proportions and such plus I'm satisfied with my style and how it's practically my own. I wouldn't want to be a copy of Alex here now. I've seen Alex in person while test playing Skullgirls when they were demoing it at Comic Con some time ago but I never got to converse with him being that he was in the middle of a conversation and I didn't want to be rude.

Omar Dogan http://omar-dogan.deviantart.com/

Omar is just an incredible artist. I love his sense of realism but how he still manages to keep it in the anime realm. Of course me being a big fighting game fan, I just absolutely love his Street Fighter art and such. His work is very clean and beautifully executed. I also like how he enjoys conversing with his fans and such. When he use to do a lot of drawing streams he would talk with the viewers while working on his artwork which brought more of a connection to him and his viewers. He is also one of the artist I have met in person even though I just said "Hey I'm a big fan of your work" type deal. I love how he draws hands I think some of my ability to draw hands comes from him in some way.

Mark Crilley http://www.markcrilley.com/

If there is one person who is great at keeping in touch with people who appreciate his work it would be Mark Crilley. Known for creating the mangas Miki Falls and Brody's Ghost, he is an artist who loves to share his wisdom and it's something I respect highly of him and I hope to someday do the same with my Youtube channel. He is an outstanding artist. Much like Omar Dogan, he too has a very clean and excellently executed style, but I feel the Mark is more down to earth in his style than Omar.

Chamba Jeffrey Cruz http://lastscionz.deviantart.com/

Chamba has an original comic out known as Randomveus. I love his dynamic style and his cel-shading. I hope to develop a similar cel-shading style as he does because it is incredible. He also has some wicked ideas especially when you look at Randomveus .

Bara-chan Rose Besch http://barachan.com/

Bara-chan is one of the first artist that sort of introduced me to the idea that people as young as me could draw at such a high caliber. She also indirectly introduced me to deviantart along side other artist within the same group of friendship as she. She has a very bright and vibrant style which also has a lot of pop-culture feel to it. I really want to get that urban feel in some of my work as well. She is also an individual that will talk to you and give you advice and she has given me a number of advice through out the years. It was great to finally meet her in person at Anime Expo back in 2010. I wish I got a picture with her and bought a print oh well for sure the next time I run into her at a convention.

Yoshitoshi Abe http://abworks.blog83.fc2.com/

Another legendary artist who was the character designer for two animes that are up there as my favorites list, Serial Experiment Lain and Haibane Renmei. I just enjoy his attention to detail and the organic feel of his works. I believe the reason his work appears more organic is that he is known to not use rulers. I'd like to make backgrounds like he does some day. 

I guess I'll wrap it up for now, but I'd like to continue doing this so this is going to be a multi-parter. I still got a lot of artist to cover.
 

L.A.'s new: The Legends of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D

So I had a gift card laying around and decided to go and use it to get a new 3DS game and one that would take more advantage of the 3D functions. I got one of my favorite N64 games remade for the system.

Yeah The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D. Sadly, I never experienced this game all the way through. I've seen the end and played through the early bits. I've never owned this game and if I did have it, it was for a short time. So the things I know very well about this game are the young Link dungeons, the forest temple, and then I would stop at the water temple. I've seen the end of the game by watching my friend play it, but I never read any of the dialogue. I know the general idea of the story but never full immersed into the world of Hyrule in this game. I'm happy they remade this game so I can finally fully experience this game.

One thing in this game that impacted me was its music. I enjoyed video game music before but because this game had a playable instrument in game, it encouraged me to play the various songs from this game by ear with the piano. That was the first instance that I knew I had a sort of natural talent to play by ear. I was tempted to expand this musical ability by majoring in music theory but I decided to shift my talents to drawing later on. To this day though, Saria's Song remains to be my favorite song in this game.

Saria's Song

 

and a nice arrangement.

I also enjoy the character Saria I ought to draw her and the other characters in this game like Malon, Zelda, and such.

So my first impressions. This game was incredible back in the day. This remake makes it that much more incredible. The game looks gorgeous the 3d adds to the games aesthetics. I love the added animations to the characters. Link has extra frames of animation when he is in mid jump and when he runs articles of his clothing move more fluidly. The music some maybe a bit disappointed. What they could've done was remaster the soundtrack and maybe give it an orchestrated backing. They just slightly improved what they had. Now for me it's a hit of nostalgia to her some N64 esque chip samples since it is one of the consoles I grew up playing (the others being SNES, Genesis, and NES). The new controls for the ocarina are a bit odd to me. I'm just use to seeing c button arrows. Some bits of the plot fall victim to old school gaming logic but that's fine.  Another thing that was a disappointing was the manual for the game. It's just this folded leaflet thing. I was expecting some official art because the art for this game is amazing. I'm sad at how manuals are dying I love getting a game and then looking through the manual checking out the art and learning some mechanics and such.

This game is well worth the buy if you are a fan of Zelda and if you wanted to see what all the buzz is about this game, this is a great version to try because let's face it the N64 didn't have the prettiest graphics out there. 

Now I really want to get another N64 remake that is actually my favorite of the system, Star Fox 64 3D.

L.A.'s Art: Winter Days

It's taken quite awhile but finally I'm finish.

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Lanavi Winter, my signature character, is taking a stroll on a winter day while it begins to snow. 

This is my first time really doing a full digitally painted environment and I think it came out very nice despite my inexperience. I did a lot of studying to figure out how to draw trees, the textures, and how to make snow look like snow. I do enjoy the cloud work.

All done in Paint Tool Sai

Music of inspiration: Pages by Coda

Artwork of the Past: Noobie Bounty Hunter Robot Kiwi

Created around fall of 2010.

I've been listening to a bunch of WayForward game music especially for their recent Nintendo E-shop game Mighty Switch Force. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAQMtSM0zRk&feature=related Awesome soundtrack by the way you can buy it at a price you see fit here -> http://virt.bandcamp.com/album/mighty-switch-force-ost all proceeds go to getting WayForward better equipment to make even better music which is totally worth it. If Robot Kiwi ever became a game, Jake Kaufman can do the music anytime.

Click image for full view.

Anyways to my thought, I was listening to this music which really reminds me of good ol' Robot Kiwi, and in "L.A.'s original character all star line up" she is without a doubt number 3 only behind Vignette Moon and Solstice Winter. I wanna draw her, heck I should do that right after my current two projects.
  

Here is a look back at one of two of my favorite pieces from before my big style change. I'm especially proud of this one because it gain the favorite of world renown artist Hector "Elsevilla" Sevilla Lujan http://elsevilla.deviantart.com/ he told me how effective the color and her design was. That was a huge, huge confidence booster. Gotta thank video game characters for their influence.

This is a long post I tend to do that heh but I'm going to draw her next. I'm super curious as to how Kiwi will look in my improved style. She, along with Solstice, have gone through a multitude of design changes as my art style has changed over the years.

Ciao~

WIP: Lanavi Winter's winter 2011

So this time of year always reminds me of my most beloved original character. Her name, Lanavi Winter. Obviously by her name was inspired by this season which is my favorite season. Now I didn't really feel like doing a festive art piece to celebrate Christmas and well this is my second time passing on the tradition. Instead I really want to make a piece where Solstice is outdoors where it's snowing and its night and maybe put a hint of Christmas. The Christmas in the piece is going to be super subtle I'd rather express the season more than anything.

Click image for full view.

 There isn't much here right now. Lanavi is going to have longer hair to make look more elegant I guess and well I don't have a lot of long haired characters.

 Here is the final sketch. I decided to not only to change Lanavi's hair style but to also redesign her outfit. I gave her one of my favorite kinds of coats while adding a bit of my flare to it. (i.e. the wrapping ribbon like things which are button on. I guess if they needed a practical purpose they have different notches so you can tighten the sleeves.) I still thinking if I should keep the scarf in her regular design. I love drawing scarfs. I just enjoy make them seem to come to life and thus their motion is a tad over exaggerated. Again I always love drawing hands and all sorts of positions and such. She does wear winter clothing in the story she is apart of because she lives in very northern like area of the world where it is normally snowing and such. Each of my characters in this story have two outfits one for the cold and one for the warmth. Lanavi's outfit for the warmth would be under her coat. I just haven't figured out what exactly. 

This blog post will be updated as the piece progresses so yeah.

Ciao~

Class Artwork: Tribute to a great mind.

In my design class, we were told to do a portrait piece of some one of significance to us for our final project. I would've did my parents but we weren't allowed to do two (No I can't choose one. Both of my parents are awesome) due to the time. So I decided to do one of an individual who has helped inspired me to write stories and do animations, Hayao Miyazaki. Hayao Miyazaki is the man behind some of the best known Ghibli films. He's a director, animator, manga artist, and story writer.

So I have done portrait pieces several times before but this one was very different. How is it different? Well let's take a look.

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This portrait was done with nothing but text! So starting off, I did a quick sketch of the reference photo with a pencil and then I wrote all the titles of Miyzaki's works that I have seen, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso, and Nausica. To create different darker values I wrote over and over and wrote smaller. To make lighter values I just wrote big. This was my favorite project in design class.

Here are some detail shots.

And here is the photo I used as a reference.

Now my printer decided to screw up the photo and make the shadows much more darker than they should so that's why there is a huge dark shadow on his face and such. 

I used a mechanical pencil and my Sakura pigma micron pen to make this.