Morecado's Artblog & Stuff

[morecado]

Mainly going to be about whatever I'm up to when it comes to art, but also some other that fuel my creativity.

Socials:
Website: morecado.com
Twitter: twitter.com/morecado
Instagram: instagram.com/morecado/
ArtStation: artstation.com/morecado

[morecado]

Recap of recent events for context:
- Worked on my Artwar 5 piece "Midsummer Shieldmaiden"
- Did some freelance work (still am)
- Rough time strikes (depression, relationships etc. - the usual)
- Stops working on personal art for weeks
- Starts over by posting sketches and doodles online daily.
- Gradually regains my art mojo and passion for art, resulting in work quality slowly going up.
- Stayed on track for 10 days now and no intention of stopping.

I'll post all the sketches I've done so far in a separate post

[morecado]

A mix of studies, fanart, DTIYS and OCs.
I put them all together for a tighter post.

[morecado]

I started this one yesterday.
Drawing my OC Setsuna sit by the window in her spaceship is something I've had on my mind for a while now.

The original idea was for her to have a "lost in thought" and somewhat melancholic expression on her face, but it was changed to a more sad looking one.

Edit:
Just want to mention that I really like working on square canvases. I'm not sure why I like them so much. Paired with how well they fit Instagram, it's just too good. Can't stop.

[morecado]

Did some color keys (I believe that's the term?) to try out a couple of looks for it.
1, 2 & 6 resonates with me the most, as the cold blues give it that space-y feel and also enhances the sad undertones of the drawing.

While the warmer ones aree pretty neat too they looks like the ship just flew past a star or something. That isn't inherently a bad thing, but it does draw so much attention that you'd wonder if it's about her or the aforementioned star.

A comment I got on it mentioned that 1 & 6 had better values than 2. Around her face and hand in particular, that is indeed the case:
In 2, it's just so bright that she essentially has the same value as the wall behind her - resulting in her fading into it. This is an issue 1 & 6 doesn't have, and the light comes off as much softer, which just fits the image so much better.

Since I like 2 the most out of the three I mentioned earlier, I'll be looking to pay close attention to the values as I move forward. First by doing a lot of greyscale work, then going into colors.

[llucia.riba]

Hi! I like a lot the melancholy of this image. In my opinion, the first one is the best (that colour light makes me think of northern lights)

[morecado]

Yoo, that is a really interesting point.
I couldn't quite place it before, because I kept calling it "green space light".
With northern lights as the context, it sure does change the way I think of that one.

Some people told me they liked the greens in that version, so I'll take that into consideration.

[morecado]

Getting the light and colors right was more difficult than I thought it'd be,
Still have a lot left to work on here, but progress is progress.
I'm not the best at cell shaded works with complete backgrounds, but it's kind of looking promising. Not sure where I go from here though haha..ha.

---

I thought I had a chance at getting somewhere in this year's ArtWar, but it turns out that wasn't the case.
Not going to lie, I feel a bit lost now. I poured everything I had into it and since whatever I thought was best for the piece wasn't enough - I'm seriously doubting whatever artistic abilities I have. Like, I can't even tell what I'm lacking.
Anyways.... It is what it is.
There's always a next time, provided I live long enough to see that happen.

[morecado]

I watched this anime called "Wonder Egg Priority".
It was very nice and helped me deal with the stress I was feeling.
The ending was a little weird, but overall very enjoyable.

[morecado]

Cooldown shape study.
Posting something everyday really does help me stay on track and keep working.

[morecado]

Finished the piece I was working on.
I had some friends take a look at it by the end, just to see if everything was working.
It got really dark, but perhaps the fact that not everything is perfectly visible is a good thing.

[morecado]

I did it. I made a timelapse video for once.
I swear... I've been meaning to make one for the longest time, but whenever I press record I start drawing like shit.

[morecado]

I was very pleased with how my RossDrawsTIYS turned out, considering I did it all in one day (yesterday). Unfortunately, I missed the deadline by one day and I don't think he ever saw it. A shame, but the piece itself was nice so I'm not really complaining.

The day after (which is today), I felt slightly burned out from finising two pieces in such short notice and went for a study of sorts instead.

Also, there was a new update for Genshin Impact, so I got rather... distracted.

[morecado]

OC outfit development and a doodle for MerMay.

I am liking the direction the outfit is going right now. While the pattern work needs to be refined, the see-through arms has potential. I'm not completely sold on the pants, but everything below the belt is lacking.

The mermaid ended up being a sacrifice for seeing how fast I could get a drawing to a sort of refined state. I mean, for a more serious painting, I'd go over and correct it much more of course, but this gets the point across and didn't take too long. About an 1-2 hours to be precise.
Speed = More drawings
More Drawings = Mileage
Milage = Good
Speed = Good
I could be wrong though.

[morecado]

Today I was blessed with some very enjoyable client work.
By the end of the day, I ran out of time and couldn't draw something more extensive, so I spent the last hour or two experimenting.

Turns out you can color a black and white sketch in some really funky ways, by using gradient maps. I know Mr. Cubebrush himself likes it, but prior to this I couldn't fit it into my process.

Using different gradient maps for different objects let me toss some quick colors onto the sketch, which already had values established. By using multiple layers of GMs and only letting them peak through on certain spots (by masking), I was able to get all kinds of colors down really f*cking fast.

This will come in handy for all those boring B/W sketches I post online.

[morecado]

Got her weapon of choice out of the way, which also helps drive the design forward.
Drew this one around midnight yesterday, which was a fairly new experience. I very rarely draw at such a late time of day/night.

Here's a design I kept stored away for some reason. Now that I didn't have anything to share for my daily drawing adventures (I still drew and worked, just not on anything new or anything I could share), this turned out to be an excellent emergency post.

Don't do art for social media though. Do it because you enjoy it.
I only do it like this because I didn't want to break my streak of daily posts with some rushed crap just for the sake of posting.

[morecado]

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. Even got it recorded and all that jazz.
I had a lot of work this past week, resulting in me getting a lot of practice on values and composition.

Here's the process:

[morecado]

I enjoy drawing muscles and whatnot. Ever since I watched some videos on Bridgman (think it was by ModernDayJames) and reading his books, I've been a little bit obsessed with making the shapes flow into each other as much as possible.

Whenever I do that though, the lineart gets really thick for some reason. I really like the thick lineart, but I'll be honest - it kind of steals too much attention when I try to add values or colors to it.

It's too thick!!

[morecado]

Feeling very concept artist-y today as I used Blender to help create the room for my character to be in. While I don't find it too difficult to just draw it, it most certainly can get tedious very quickly.

My Blender skills are a$$ for now. I used to do a bit of Maya in the past, so I'm not completely lost. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like everything translates directly between the two and some learning is required.

This piece is one that's been on my to-do list for a while now, as it's a directly connected to one I previously made a couple of days ago.

[morecado]

Progress has been made.
Didn't think it'd take so much time just creating a bunch of clutter.

Right now, there doesn't seem to be anything that guides the eyes.
It's just a lot of stuff, without "direction".

I'm thinking, maybe I could add some cables going across the floor to help lead the eyes and then maybe some papers that fell down from the table?
Those would then help carry the eyes up across the floor and up on the table.

Also, I just realized that I could (and totally should) put an old unrelated artwork of mine on the screen next to him. It'd be a fun little throwback for myself.