DaCeronNine - Art School Journey

[mitsuki-youko]

yooo how long did it take u to draw this bg?! it looks so pro yet that looks like so many perspective lines!

[daceronine]

Thanks! I was thinking about it... I think it took 2 hours to do the sketch, 2 hours to ink it, and probably revisited a few more times... so all in all, about 5-6 hrs, which is what a page usually takes.
I think it can be improved on, but I currently go by "is it good enough?" to try to keep a steady schedule. Instead of spending more time on it, I hope to make the next one better.

[mitsuki-youko]

that is impressive! that'd take me a lot longer than that to draw a fancy building breaking apart like that!

[daceronine]

Thanks! That's actually very reassuring, I still have a hard time with envrionments, it's hard to know when it's "good enough". I guess it's all about just doing it over and over until it becomes easier.

[Gordon003]

Great to see that you are looking to see and understand folds and shadows rather than just copy what the references just show. I'm also learning to do the same thing for my cartoon as I learn to follow the character flow (which is gonna be cartoony anyway) rather than just copy what the reference photo shows, both folding and shadow wise.

Also nice to see you split up your work between courses and manga perspective work. Is that done to ensure you work in your perceived weakness?

[daceronine]

Honestly, hadn't thought about it that way. Whenever I work on the manga, I have a script and a draft I follow, and then I try to render the scene to the best to my capabilities regardless of what the scene is. Most are, of course, characters, others, like this one, is focused on the environment.

That said, I do try to challenge myself a bit with some scenes to put into practice as much as I can from what I've learned so far (and try something new as well).

For example, for most of the previous actions scenes, I was playing around with different "speed effects", I'll try to apply the rules for the face proportions and take notice of the anatomy details, reference other manga works to learn from how they do composition and backgrounds and so on.

In this case, I probably could have gotten away with a scene of the building from a less complex perspective, but wanted to try out something more interesting.

[daceronine]

Very small update for today, just started the first of 5 cloth reference from artists, and what better way to start than with the artist who has had the most influence over me.

So now it's about some of Nozomu characters cosplaying as other fantasy characters, and learning from their clothes.

I'll say, it was a lot of fun doing this one. I really like this style.

And as usual, for fun, another manga page, we're up to page 7 from chapter 23, got 17 more days to do 5 more pages + art piece + translation and adjustments.

I tried to lower the opacity of the BGs to put focus on the characters. It.. works...? kinda? Actual manga is in BW so it's hard to compare. Eventually I want to try the actual manga pure hard Black/white style, since I think it would print better, but for now I'll finish these chapters using the established style for consistency sake.

Back to the grind.

[daceronine]

Another brief update, since it's only one more piece, figured I would breakdown the process a bit more.

Decided to do something a bit more challenging this time around. Settled on one of Genshin's characters, Kirara, since Genshin has very top notch character designs.

As usual, I'm aiming to analyze and imitate, using some of my Nozomu characters as a base.

So, first the body sketch as usual, paying close attention to the volumes, proportions, and in this case, changing the feet, since this Nozomu catgirl actually has human feet, one tail, and... huh.. a bit more "volume" at the hip.

Then sketched the clothes over the body. Genshin characters have a LOT of detail so this was a lot more challenging than Goku, who has a rather basic design.

Now the ink, which took some time on it's own, followed by basic tones.

Finally shadows, and some cloth texture detail. Not too much, but enough to emulate what the original has. And boom, we're done.

As I mentioned, a lot more challenging, but it made me appreciate how much goes into these designs. I've come to realize characters by pros are actually.... harder than photographs.

The clothes they design are very extravagant, to the point that it seems to not make sense, but closer look reveals they actually make sense and have many little details we take for granted, like the space for the tails to come out from, how the accessories balance on both ends of the design, all the seemingly random "knots" and "strings" actually are there for a reson and so on.

Wew, and finished the next page of the manga. Drawing characters in 3/4 angle was harder than expected, and I tried to pay extra attention to the shocked expression at the bottom. Had to refer to anime face lighting examples. I think the eyes could have been bigger, but I tried to respect proportions. Doing the faraway some was also interesting.

That's it for now. Off to work tomorrow, and back to the grind.

[mitsuki-youko]

ooh that study looks great!!

I tried to pay extra attention to the shocked expression at the bottom. Had to refer to anime face lighting examples. I think the eyes could have been bigger, but I tried to respect proportions.

imo the shading above her eyes/nose could be darker tho

[daceronine]

Thanks!

imo the shading above her eyes/nose could be darker tho

You think so? I'll try to darkken the skin shadow and see how it looks!

[daceronine]

Did a very quick edit. Contrast seems stronger!

[mitsuki-youko]

eyy noice! that looks great! very anime like!

[Kaz_0]

ooo your manga panels are amazing ! The action scenes are epic. And great studies. I would not have the patience for genshin designs. The details are crazy.

[daceronine]

Thanks! One of my personal goals with the art course is to be able to have decent art in the manga at a reasonable rate, so it's reassuring to hear we're progressing well. Kirara was definetly a challenge! but I feel I learned quite a bit, so it was worth it.

[daceronine]

Lots of craziness and business these days on the real life side, so had a slower pace at this. Still was able to do some progress though.

The refernece this time is G'raha Tia from FF14 (That name... I had to look up the name spelling)
I'm a big fan of FF in general, and their designs are also amazing for the most part, so figured I would try to analyze one of the main characters in FF14. G'raha seemed to have the most... "common" clothes out of the group so to speak.

Decided to change the weapon, a hand pose, and as usual, the character, and focused on the clothes.

Body sketch, clothes sketch, inking, tones.

and finally shadows and a few small details

As usual, a good learning experience. His clothes are really something else, simple yet intricate.

Interesting enough, what I liked more about his design, are the boots. I think I'll have to study shoes more at the side. I always end up doing the standard dragon ball simple boots, but it's clear they can be much more and look so much better. These boots look great without being overly ornamental.

The pants were also interesting in that they seem to be normal baggy pants, but on closer inspection.. they seem to be stitched together from different pieces. Also makes them look better than the standard pants without being overly complex.

And another manga page. Just 3 more pages to finsh this chapter.

Took some time to understand how those anime eyes sparkles work, and spent way too long in that random hallway background. All in all, not much to say, just a small conversation scene.

Wew, need to get back into the grind. I'm off to work.

[mitsuki-youko]

Wew, need to get back into the grind. I'm off to work.

lol you left the grind? when? where? XD

these look great btw!

[daceronine]

hehe, Thanks. Truth be told I had some stuff to take care of these days, so I slowed a bit. But it's true I never really stop, I try to do at least a bit per day (usually at night when everything is quiet and peaceful).

The grind never stops!

[daceronine]

Cloth exercice from artist reference, 4 out of 5.

Decided to go for something more simple, back to Toriyama's style. Nera from Dragon quest 5. I think I've mentioned it before but I really enjoy Toriyama's simple yet pleasent to the eye designs.

I had to rework proportions a bit, since this original design has an almost chibi big head proportion to it. I know there are other versions of the design wich have different proportions and more elaborate textures for the clothes, but I wanted to go with one of the original pieces.

And so, we went through the now common pipeline, body sketch, clothes sketch, inking, tones

And finally shadows and details

Really happy how this one turned out, I think I have the pipeline for these practices well established now. I feel the character fits into the design really well too.

Also worked on the next manga page. Got some feedback about how the white outline for characters makes it feel like they are "stickers" on the panels, which is true, though I kinda had to include it to provide more clarity, since without them, the feedback was that they were easily confused with the BGs, due to the heavy use of tones and grays.

I doubled the ink ont he first panel to give it the feeling of a "tremor", though not sure if it had the desired effect.

I do plan to try a different style eventually, To try to limit myself to pure black and white (and few tones), which I think will resolve the issue to some degree, though I'm still thinking about it.

As of right now, I personally like this style, and I feel like it also makes it feel kind of different, since anyone looking at one of these pages will easily recoginze it.

Nothing urgent, I'll still try out different things and see how they work out.

[daceronine]

Final exercice of cloth from artist reference 5 of 5. At least for now. I think next is to start with anatomy 2.

Went with Ryne from FF14 for this study. I like the character design simplicty, and it seemed like a good target for some simple practice. Needed a bit of a break from challenges (which I still had with the manga), so went for something interesting cloth wise but rather simple to address.

I also absolutely loved this particular artist's rendition of the character.

And so, we go through the now usual sketch, ink, tones, shadows pipeline process.

And boom, final one of this series done

And of course, been hard at work at the manga as well. Finished one more page. Only one more to finish chapter 23, and then translation, art cover, a few details, and I can upload it as scheduled on 8/20.

Really liked how some of the effects turned out, such as the BG on the first panel and the light effects. I also took a quick peek at some of the first chapters and, ho boy, have we come a long way!

And that's it for now! Still got a lot more to do! thanks for dropping by!

[daceronine]

Wew, had to take a little break to wrap up chapter 23 and write the script for 24 and get the draft and work going. Not to mention real life work which always takes a lot of time.

Also started video on Anatomy 2 in Term 3. And oh boy was there a lot to unpack here.

Now, I LOVE the human anatomy, and though I've done some independent stuedies, I had never had someone sit down and help me break down the different muscle groups like Marc did.

It was fascinating and incredibly useful! I can see gaps in my understanding I had not noticed before. Proportions for many muscles finally make sense, and I'm eager to start applying this new found knowledge to see how it works out.

But first, before I jump into the exercices, I went back and and did a little study to review the whole thing so I can really learn and remember most of the bones and muscles explained in this chapter.

I'll continue with the exercies as per the companion guide next.

During this break, I got to do a lot of work on the manga, if you have followed it in webtoon, you probably already saw all these, but still wanted to share some of the work done so far:

Cover art. Did it fairly quickly, still imitating Toriyama's style, kinda obvious with the high contrast coloring :

And final page of the chapter. Wanted a high view of the field. Wasn't sure of how much detail to pack in, but I think it turned out pretty good!:

Also did a few profile sketches to keep practicing the different face parts, proportions and simplified inking. highly stylized of course, but still trying to pay attention to the individual face parts.

That's it for now! Back into the grind! Got a lot of stuff to do!

Thanks for dropping!