I couldn’t finish one of my commissions by the time Anime Central ended. So I needed to finish this two-character piece at a later date and mail it to my client! With this, it gives me a short opportunity to tell you about my Copic Marker technique for this piece.
This commission is for ToastyGhostey’s OCs and Az and Miko. I dig the art style, and it was a nice challenge to figure things out with my markers. ToastyGhostey told me that I didn’t have to draw AZ’s helmet, but I took that as a challenge. Do I regret it? No, this was still great.
Next, I fill in Miko’s first jacket with YR18S Sanguine. I should’ve used a lighter red marker since the color is too orange compared to the refs. I pressed forward to avoid my perfectionism. Likewise, I also took the time to add Y18S Lightning Yellow trim to Az’s jacket.
Then I needed to layer more colors to darken Miko’s fists. I tried using E15S Dark Suntan and Mauve Shadow. Then added V06S Lavender, but it wasn’t enough. Using an N2S Neutral Grey 2, I dulled the stone color down.
I realized that messed up a detail for Miko’s Jacket. Failing to notice the small patch on her Jacket from her refs until after I colored it. With a Colorless Blender, I attempted to clear away the color to the best of my ability. Time to add in the YG03S Yellow Green in the eyes and a 0.3 Pentel Arts Hybrid Tech Pen for smaller details.
Finally, use the E27S Milk Chocolate to darken the wood of Az’s rifle and antlers.
After all this, I add a smidge of Ice Blue for shadows and complete Miko’s jacket with Lighting Yellow trim! All that’s left is to message my client to get their approval, and mail the sucker off in an envelope!
This is a sloppy explanation of my process. This gives me a good idea to make a formal article about Copic Markers. Heck, I’ll try to make a video about it!
I’m still open for commissions and so if you want a commission for yourself, check out my Commission page to get some cool unique art from me!
This month has been my most successful month of the year saleswise for my art! Anime Central was this month, and it’s a huge one! It’s a good sign that can sunset my time at my day job to take a big plunge into full time art. But I’m sure this is wishful thinking.
Things have been picking up for February! I’ve been starting up the con season, doing commissions, and more art! If you want to keep up with my tasks in real time you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram! I’m also cultivating my new Ko-Fi page for tips, so stop by there as well!
Most of Early February was preparing for Northwest Indiana Comic-Con, the first con I’ve had in years due to the plague. It’s nice to resupply and get ready. I’ve been taking on extra hours at my day job to get more money to print and reprint missing things. Luckily, NWI Comic-Con was better than I worried about! My Cat Stickers are a smash hit, they sold even more than my comics!
My stickers have grown with my newest addition to my growing collection of stickers!
Thanks to StickerNinja, you can get a large 5×4 size of my Hipster Medusa stickers!
While there, I took one nice marker commission of a Tracksuit Mafia guy from the Hawkeye show and comics.
His comic-inspired colors were simple enough, though I was worried I’d run out of ink in my Copics.
My next cons are CODCon, and Schaumburg Library Con. All of these before my giant event at Anime Central in April! It’s going to be a big jump for me, and I have a bunch of rethinking of my convention approach to do.
I’ve been working on new digital commissions as well! This Family Portrait commission is another experimental one where I’m doing my hardest to try simple painting. I’ll say that I’m getting faster and cleaner at painting, since I’m not getting lost in the weeds with brushes. I also decided to stick with my stylization and not stress hard about an exact likeness.
This one is more of a likeness drawing, and I get kinda nervous when it comes to commissions where I draw likeness. But my client was satisfied with the sketches, so I’m no longer worried.
The Art experiment continues where I skip the inking process and go straight to colors. The coloring went faster overall because I began the flat coloring at a lower resolution and I didn’t use the lasso tool on my line art.
To break out of my comfort zone, I bothered to look up how the skin varies in temperature. Unfortunately, I got frustrated by the odd in between look of this painting, thinking I was making the face look clownish. I settled for a subtle red splotch in the middle to settle my mind. I’ll figure this out if I do studies in my own time.
This next part is the more tedious part, as I’m painting over my pencil art like a physical painting. Without formal painting training, I’m going off of tutorial videos. Many about basic edge control and blending.
I don’t like the rendering step in the process because it’s boring, and I have no idea how to make it interesting. The rendering is half the reason I don’t like painting. Despite that, I press forward!
I tackled another large commission for a friend. This one was for an icon, which is simple enough for me!
I’m getting used to sketching in the Artflow Phone App on my Samsung Galaxy Note 9. I draw all my icon sketches on 150 dpi 3 inch canvases because it emulates drawing on a Post-it Note.
She liked sketch number two on the top middle and wanted the Mohawk to be longer, so I obliged.
I ink and flat color in my trusty Clip Studio Paint program! It’s a common step where I use my Lasso and Hard Round Brushes to get down a drawing area. Once that tough part is done, I can plunk down the basic colors I need with a Clipping Mask!
There’s plenty of trial and error with figuring out my lighting. Other than that, I took enough breaks to get out of my own head and simplify what I wanted to do.
Add some detailing to show off the materials and I complete a great looking icon for silly Discord conversations!
Here’s some old art from a game jam Adam and I worked on 2018 about being a liar in an office space. I was messing around with silly designs for office workers. Adam converted my art to pixel art, as I didn’t know about making pixel art at that time.
Other Art I’ve been doing and uploaded to my Illustration and Sketchbook Galleries. A bunch of bird people just vibing. I don’t draw that many birds. There’s too much to draw out there.
Some dog guard sketches that I’m brainstorming for Blackmask. I’m still doing new writing for the game, as I’ve sent so much pixel art for Adam to program. Adam’s shooting for having a playable demo ready for summer, but I’ll keep you all informed.
Monkey Knight Sketches I’m also considering for Blackmask. I haven’t thought about monkeys that much before recently. But now I’m figuring out cool ways to work in Blackmask. Having a prehensile tail is a straight-forward, yet unique way to add some flair to a sword and board warrior.
And finally, some more miscellaneous sketches I drew of people I see around when I’m at work or anywhere else. It gets tough seeing people’s faces with their masks on, so I use my imaginations on many of them.
These posts get long in the tooth, so next time I’m going to make shorter blogs for easier, faster writing. Otherwise, follow me on Twitter and Instagram for more of my daily tasks. I’ll be off to celebrate my 30th birthday!
It’s been a productive start to my new year. Despite nursing a head cold, I had for the first few weeks, I made plenty of art to prepare for the coming year!
On February 12th, I’ll be tabling at Northwest Indiana Comic-Con! It’s the first time in two years that I’ve tabled at a con!
The things you’ve seen on my Etsy Store, you can get them at the con! This comes with the added benefit of meeting me in person and having a chat!
This month isn’t eventful for me. I had a life emergency that need my attention, so my art progress isn’t going crazy. I’ve been taking more hours at my day job to catch up on some heavy money issues. Nothing too debilitating, just need to save up money to prepare for next year’s conventions and my car problems.
The Indie Real Time Strategy game, Furs of Fury is out now! You might remember me making a large illustration of it a while ago! I’m currently plugging away on an article about the making of this painting, so stay tuned for that!
I’ve been taking art commissions for the past few weeks as I’m looser on time and I had bills to catch up on. I’ve been posting them on Twitter, Instagram and livestreaming my work on Twitch! If you’re interested in taking a commission, stop by my page for information and fill out a form!
Things are good. I’ve been doing holiday stuff, Etsy sales, video editing and new progress on my indie game!
My thanksgiving was well and my holidays are going alright. I cooked a nice dinner for my family and stuck together, caught up on some manga that I’d been missing out on like Dr. Stone and My Hero Academia and even purchased new games like Hollow Knight and The Wonderful 101 to get myself back into playing and thinking about video games.
I’m continuing my holiday sale on my Etsy store! Remember that it ends on December 18th, a week before Christmas! It’s the final week for my holiday sale! Stickers and Comics are great stocking stuffers!
I’m having car problems right now, so I’m taking commissions for 10 slots.
