DaCeronNine - Art School Journey

[patrycja.lerch]

Oh this looks cool! Love the glowing marks!

[mitsuki-youko]

woah i love the metallic look!!

Man, I've been saying how it's been hard at work lately, but then it went and got worse. Doesn't seem like it will slow down for the next few weeks, but at least I should get a bit more time.

bruh i feel u man, life's been busy here too :3 don't think i'll be able to get back in the flow for a few more months at best.. However Im sure partially its because of my mental block - i just CANNOT start something that i know i won't be able to finish in a week or a few weeks.. like i feel like i'll forget how my layers are set up and everything BUT realistically if i were to take 15-30 mins a day to plotbuild and another 15-30 mins to draw (attainable no matter how busy i get) at least it'd get somewhere in a week, month, and def lead to results in a year even if i only have those 15 mins but i havent been able to bring myself to do it

Have you ever worked on a piece and looked at it for so long, tweaked it, then tweaked it more until you felt you don't even know what you're doing anymore? yea, that's how this felt.

hahaha yea totally get that XD

Though i'm sure it has to do with the state of mind. At one point you just need to let it go and continue. I personally think improvement comes more from iteration than from trying to get the piece "just right".

dat do be tru. once u do it enough times u get a gague of what looks "good"

Manga panel looks great as always!!

here's to more fun and fulfilling grinding (in a good way ofc) :3

[daceronine]

Thanks @patrycja.lerch and @mitsuki-youko!

After a few days of rest I'm feeling much better and ready to resume the grind! Still got lots of work, but it's amazing what some rest can do for your mood.

Though I do think I'll have to do some changes to my personal pipeline and structure. As you said, it's attainable to do a bit every day.

[daceronine]

Things are finally calming down a bit, some work was postponed for next week, so next week will probably be quite busy, but for now we're good!

Term 4 progress

One more piece, this is the 3 out of 5 color palettes from other artists exercice.

Wanted to take it easy for this one, so opted for a straightforward profile pic.

This girl's name is Lydia. Originally tried to add stripes to her hair, but it just looked bad, so I left it as orange. Modeled after Android 18, but with a more piratey theme. A few elements from Miss fortune were mixed in.

She's actually older than she appears... and hates talking about it.

I'll probably revisit the color scheme and add some more details at a later iteration.

Since she's kind of a pirate, figured it would make sense to use color variants from One Piece girls.

I personally really like the black hair variant to the point I might just keep using that one for this girl with a few more tweaks.

Which one do you like best?

Inktober

Hummm I think I won't be doing more inktober. I realize I underestimated the time and dedication it would take, and my hat is off to everyone still going at it. At least I understand it more, and I think I know how to prepare and do a proper one next year.

For starters, I think i'll stick to the actual guide for pieces, and I'll do sketches before hand like everyone else was doing.

It is what it is, that's how you learn!

Manga

No page today, working on wrapping up chapter 25 and upload it, and writing and drafting chapter 26.

Chapter 26 wraps up the "battle" on going in the manga pages for a few months now. I was always clear on how it was going to end, so the script was relatively straightforward, but the draft will probably take longer than usual.

That's it for now! Thanks for stopping by! Cheers and have a nice day!

[mitsuki-youko]

Noice! I think the first one is the best imo

tho one thing I noticed was that the hair and the shirt had a bit of a tangent.. maybe have some hair go over the clothes?

[daceronine]

Was thinking about that when it came to clean up the lineart as well... but if you look at the other side, the hair does fall within the collar since the shirt is unbuttoned and kind of open. The collar is actually reaching almost all the way to the shoulders, which in retrospective doesn't work that well and makes it a bit confusing. I think I'll change the shirt design altogether in the next iteration.

[gregorya]

Nice work. I like the idea of using the color palate of an existing character to color a new one. I like your Darkken character, Ninja and Pirate character colors. I like the red-haired and blue-haired pirate.

[daceronine]

Thanks! Though to be fair, the idea is from an exercice at the beginning of Term 4. Taking paletes from other artists and trying to use them.

[Pattu_w]

She looks pretty good! i liked the black haired one the most, it fits her.

[daceronine]

Haven't been able to work at my arts that much. I keep talking about how busy I am with work, and now I got another request for another application. Not a complaint, it's good work, but damn, everything is just kinda happening at the same time.

Enough with that though, let's talk about progress!

Term 4 progress

Piece 4 our of 5 color practice. Dragoon / Dragon Knight. Just a lineart and test base.

Still need to add shadows, light, detail and what not. I think I have settled on the base colors and I know what the variants will be as well.

For reference, here's the original design from back in 2022/04/30. I actually think it still holds up, just wanted to refine it a bit more and redefine colors for it. I think you can see the similarities and differences.

Feedback is always welcome to adjust the design or colors!

Also from back in 2022/05/17

Brief 1 chapter stories involving the Dragon knight:

https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/nozomu-english/dreams-of-destruction/viewer?title_no=800887&episode_no=7

https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/nozomu-english/dreams-of-hellknight/viewer?title_no=800887&episode_no=14

Man it's been so long.

Manga

Another manga page starting chapter 26! Probably the last frame where Seki throws the robbed assasins around. It all starts to and after this.

That's it for now! Need to keep grinding, though I first need to continue my coding work.

Oh well, c'est la vie. Cheers!

[patrycja.lerch]

Looks really cool! The only thing is that cape and dark blue have the same value. But I think it is fine since they are complimentary and shading will add to it to. Bright blue on character separates it. I wouldn't notice it if on palette they weren't next to each other

[daceronine]

Thanks! Yea, I wasn't entirely convinced by the cape color either, maybe I'll try changing it. I was just following the wheel, but I'll try to find a few color references.

Does it look blue? I thought it was teal.. let me see... (checks wheel) you're right! It's closer to blue than it is to green. I think I'll adjust that a bit too.

[mitsuki-youko]

ooh dragon knight looks fancyyy!

also great manga panels as always!

[ryooh]

Not on term 4 and I haven’t even peeked at it but your dragon knight looks good. Like the colors you chose and I think the design overall is cool. Your manga is still looking good too btw. I like the paneling for that page, good stuff.

[daceronine]

Thanks @patrycja.lerch, @mitsuki-youko and @ryooh! And everyone who has stopped by as well!

Work has been as brutal as ever, business as usual at this point. Can't let that stop us.

But we're not here to talk about work.

Term 4 progress

Dragon Knight / Dragoon wrapped up for now. Was thinking of touching it a bit more, but couldn't think of what else to add so I'll just leave it at that.

That's 4 out of 5 for the current exercice (practice taking colors from other artists)

Changed the cape color, looked up what else combined with Teal. Funny enough, I came back to the original orange/red (but with a better tone). Also tried to make the BG colors analogus to his own.

Brief summary on the character, Sephir the Dragoon.
Basically he is fighting a losing battle to the death against Darkken. Realizing he will not survive, he lets the dragon soul inside him burn, knowing it will consume his body as well, to perform one last feat of defiance as he reminiscences on his life.

It will eventually be a one shot manga story I hope to work on early next year once I wrap up my current work.

And on to the color variations as part of the exercice!

With such a heavy emphasis on the armor, figured I would apply one of my favorite palettes when it comes to armored figures. Golden cloths from Saint Seya.

And when talking about Dragoons, you can't help but think of Final Fantasy dragoons!

I particularly liked the colors from the FF Dragoon. I'll have to save this palete for something.

Manga

One more page! Took a while to finish this one and I felt I rushed it a bit. Too much work, but still need to make progress.

In relation to the manga, I've been doing some heavy thinking about what I'll be doing about it in the future. I think I might elaborate further on it later as part of my art journey, but I'll need to heavily restructure how I work on it based on everything I've learned in the past year, as well as more recently.

Figured others might benefit from the lessons learned, so I'll post about it at some point.

That's it! Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day! Cheers!

[snakker]

Damn, all three palettes look great, love the metallic look and the overall design/composition!

[mitsuki-youko]

my fav palette is the orange one but they all look great! and awe yea great manga as always!

In relation to the manga, I've been doing some heavy thinking about what I'll be doing about it in the future. I think I might elaborate further on it later as part of my art journey, but I'll need to heavily restructure how I work on it based on everything I've learned in the past year, as well as more recently.

super interested in this as a future webcomic artist

[daceronine]

Haha, sorry, didn't want to make it seem so misterious, just need to clear my head and put ideas in order so it's to the point and I don't deviate too much. Mostly I just want to document some lessons learned for whatever help it may be as well as record part of the art journey.

It'll be a few days given the workload I have for now though

[patrycja.lerch]

Oh I love it! Shading on armor looks great and all colors are great!

[gregorya]

I like the variations of the dragon knight.
In the manga panel, does the guy with the ponytail have only one arm?