Thanks for the support and feedback everyone!
Bit of an update today.
Still recovering, but much better and almost back to normal. Still lots of work, BAU, I hope with December things calm down a bit on the work side, but I also have some side personal work projects, so I'll be busy one way or another.
Term 4 progress
Another upper body anatomy study. Object of study this time is Grey from Fairy Tail.
I talked a bit about fanservice last time, and something I think is important on regards to it, is that it should go both ways. For guys and girls.
As a guy, when it comes to fanservice with girls, it's easy for me to judge if the girl looks good or not, but it's harder for me to gauge if a guy seems sexy for the ladies.
I do get that it's usually about the six pack, lean body, good looking dude and so on. Still, it'd be nice to hear from others here if the guy looks sexy enough.
Also still practicing to draw with little to no lineart. Still getting the hang of it.
I also went back and retouched Fubuki a bit.
All that said, to be honest, I'm not all that happy with either of these pieces. It was good practice, but I know I can do better.
Blending is not that great, shading could be better, color selection could be better, faces could be better, hair could be better, lineart could be better. If anyone has any concrete tips, I'm all ears. Or eyes... huh you know what I mean.
Not sure if it's because I was sick or I rushed them, but I just don't feel happy with them. I was happy with the Ryu piece, even if it also had areas of improvement, but no so much with these two.
Granted, that's how it goes at times. I plan to redo this exercice and get some better references. I did learn from making them though, and plan to take these lessons to the next ones. I'll probably use different characters.
Manga
Chapter 26 is wrapped up and I'm moving to chapter 27. Currently my plan is to close this initial phase of the manga by chapter 30 (just this phase, not the story itself), but we'll see how it goes.
I always slow down a bit in between chapters, with the translation, editing, next chapter rewrite and what not, but with all that done now I can finally move into chapter 27 and ramp up my rythm.
First page done!
1) Chapter 27 was originally intended to be part of chapter 26, I simply ended up splitting it as I ran out of time. It does kinda work out, since the focus for each is a bit different, even though both follow the theme of "broken mask" in a different way. Since the focus of this chapter is a bit on the character Sari, I decided to make her stand out on the first page so the reader can clearly identify her. Since this is the first page, I'm also trying to establish a "setting" for space as well as a quick overview of some of the characters across both panels.
2) Doing backgrounds is always a challenge, so I was dreading a bit doing this overview of the destroyed building (or well, part of it). I try to keep shading light so it doesn't become too busy and the focus is still on the character on the left. Doing detail can take some time, and even though I've found some shortcuts to it, it still takes a lot. However, I've also noticed that the more I do it, the more I enjoy doing it, so as long as I give myself time to invest in it, it can be quite entretaining to zone out and add detail as I watch a show at the side.
3) There's also a subtle effort to improve on the line weight used, even though it gets lost a bit with the high contrasts used. The background of the debris is probably where it's more obvious. The Mayor up front has the thickest lines to call the eyes attention as they go down. Sari has normal line weight, but having her pop out of the frames really calls the viewers attention.
That's it for now! Got lots to do, lots to grind. I'll catch you all later! thanks for stoping by!
