Manga Style: Old Fashioned Girl

I like old school style dresses. I drew this based on an image I found from a manga about some European girls at school, maybe English, but I wasn't sure.

The outline I drew by hand, from scratch. I use 2B mechanical pencil and 4B pencil for the stronger lines. The face and figure were supposed to be doll-like, with enormous manga(anime)-style eyes. I'm not partial toward the proportion of the body. Not enough manga (anime) streak in it. Shoulders too wide (maybe), arms too long. In my vision, European dolls should have curly hair and I made it short enough for the style to look child-like.
Then I tidied up the stray lines and scanned the end result.

For color, I used Adobe Photoshop because I was too lazy to do it by hand. It would take too long. With polygonal lasso, I selected the area I wanted to color and used paint bucket to fill with 100% opacity ... on a new layer. Then changed the opacity of the layer.
Made a new layer and do the above steps all over again.
See... I'm lazy. Manual outline and digital coloring might be the fastest way to go.

Fan Art: Sora Naegino (Kaleido Star)

This is a fan art of Sora Naegino, the main character from the anime Kaleido Star. There's the manga too, but the style of my image is purely anime.

I sketched the outline based on a few screen shots of Sora and scanned it. Inked (traced) the outline using Corel Draw so I got crispy clean lines. Then painted the colors using Adobe Photoshop which was so much fun. The costume wasn't from the anime, it's purely mine. Notice the shabby design which was a little dull, not the extravagant getup that appeared in the anime.

Notice the background. I didn't get to write Kaleido Star because it's a bit long. Believe me, I tried. Looked weird. So I opted for the word Star. It's short, meaningful and appropriate to describe Sora.

Digital Art: Ballerina

I made this image based on a photograph of a ballerina in a magazine, can't remember which. It seems that I still can't give up learning to create digital art images. Maybe if the response was good, I'd sell the art prints in Deviant Art.

The original picture is in vector, constructed with Corel Draw. The tools I used here were the freehand tool (equivalent of the pen tool in Adobe Photoshop), shape tool, the interactive transparency tool and the interactive drop shadow tool. For the background, I used gradient fill.

I'm not very good with designing the costume, so it's very simple and unimaginative. The tools in Corel Draw are easy to use without the hassle of using pen tool.

After the vector's finished, I opened the file in Adobe Photoshop to add some effects, like the transparent flowers around the border, and the border as well. A few layer styles and layer mask later, the final image's done.

So, is the artwork good enough for sale?

Hand Drawing: Little Girl Lost

What can I say? I love drawing little dollies. The cuter she looks, the better. Not that, I don't draw the males. But males always end up less cute, somehow.

I got the inspiration after listening to Annie's Tomorrow over and over again. And in the play, Little Annie's supposed to have red hair. The story had a happy ending. But the scene above was before the happy ending. And actually, there wasn't a teddy bear in the story. There was a dog. Dogs weren't exactly my strong point, so I opted for the bear.

I drew the character manga style, as my preference. First, was a simple rough outline with a soft pencil, added the ink using black ballpoint pen, erased the unnecessary chicken scratches. Lastly, the hues were applied using colored pencils and cotton swab.

Hand Drawing: Victorian Girls

I like drawing long dresses. I can't design a beautiful dress, though. So here's just two girls wearing generic long dresses. With different colors, of course. The lack of background is not deliberate. It's just that I suck at drawing background, so it's left empty and barren. I'm not sure about the parchment and quill. Victorians no longer use parchments, methinks. Oh well, at least it's not a slab of stone and a chisel.

The image is fairly simple, just generic manga style girls with generic manga style hair. At first, it was just rough pencil sketch, then I added ink using black ballpoint pen. Other pens are not as cheap and easy to use. I erased the rough lines and added some colors using colored pencils. As I was too lazy to fill the background, I only colored the grass.

Not much to be said. That's the problem about hand drawing. Nothing to brag about.

Pencil Sketch: Sacrifice

In preparation to face Ash Wednesday, I tried to make a pencil sketch of the Big JC based on the portrayal in King of Kings. Not that I succeed in reinventing the portrayal. It was a lousy screen printing. I mean, screen capture. Or something.

I thought I was going to return to basic by using the common 2B carbon pencil, cotton bud, and of course, the shabby sketchpad that I've abandoned for a couple of months. At first, making the outline was difficult, the hand's a bit rusty at the joints. Little by little, with lots of erasing and redrawing, the outline was done.

Now the hard part, the Shading. Did I ever mention I suck at shading? Yes, I did. By meticulously following the black and white photo caps, the face definition emerged. Not good, but not too shabby either, methinks. I spent hours and hours just doing the thorns. It didn't look exactly like thorns, more like wire. The hair was a nightmare. Because I suck at shading and highlighting.

But I'm kind of happy with the result. The image looks human, at the very least. I hope I don't go to hell because of this. What can I say? Still need some training and practice to reach professional level. Still a lot of work to do.

Hand Drawing: Violet Dress

I drew the picture a while ago. Since learning digital imaging is a little difficult, I thought I could take a break and stretched my itchy fingers. So I picked up my old sketchbook, pencil, ballpoint and some coloring pencils, and started doodling.

To say that I like Jessica Alba is a major understatement. I love her style. I saw a picture of her wearing a beautiful dress in some event and I thought she looked gorgeous. So I sketched one based on that picture. The result isn't realistic like, doesn't even look like her. But the thought is there. I don't really remember if the dress is in similar hue. The hair is too bright and the skin is too pale.

Oh, well. I guess I still need a lot of work improving my hand drawing skill. And since I only used a simple ballpoint to trace the pencil sketch (I don't have RAPIDO tracing pen), the outline looked a little rough. The coloring pencils didn't produce vibrant tones. Those cheap counterfeit merchandise. Something's off, maybe the anatomical proportion. Where is my atlas of anatomy? I still need it as reference.

At least this time my scanner didn't throw a tantrum like last time.