Ouran High School Host Club - Group Painting

My very favorite anime is one called Ouran High School Host Club - no other anime I've seen can compare to the perfect balance of silliness and storytelling that leaves you with a smile on your face.

I love ALL the characters on the show (part of what makes the show so great is how each character is explored and developed) and have wanted to do a group drawing of everyone for a while now. ESPECIALLY because official OHSHC artwork is usually bright pink and filled with roses or over-the top silly. . . not really to my taste.

For this blog post, I decided I should start with the finished piece and then jump to the progression photos - so here's the finished piece I created! It is a watercolor and ink painting that has been digitally retouched with a digital background added (original size 11x15:):

Now, let's go back and watch it come together.

After my recent success working with watercolor postcards, I decided to splurge and buy myself some large, high-quality watercolor paper. I've been out of watercolor paper for a while and the stuff I used to use was low quality and would curl (the watercolor postcards have been so nice because they're the high quality paper and I'd never previously used watercolor on paper that nice, it really makes a difference!!). I bought the pad with the specific idea of this piece in mind - I knew I wanted to start on it right away.

The first stage was penciling out the outlines I would later be inking over. I worked from several different reference screenshots from the anime, so I focused on different faces at different times.

faces start as lose circles or shapes to block out the space, then I go back and develop the face further with actual features

developing the faces and beginning to develop the shape of the bodies now as well

Because there are more characters in this piece than I've ever had in a single piece I've done before, I was surprised at how long the pencil work took me (I worked almost nightly for at least an hour, took about a week). I had to be pretty patient as it came together, so I was very relaxed about my drawing schedule and would watch random shows on Netflix as I worked.

almost done with my outlines!

After I finished my pencil work, I picked up my graphic pen (which I hadn't used on a piece before) and started tracing over my pencil lines.

I decided I wanted to add an inviting hand to the character in the foreground and ended up not finishing the pencil work on the last two characters on the far left until after I had done some inking

finished inking, including going back and thickening lines to create a sense of depth

Spent a couple evenings laying in watercolor paint - and some highlights in gouache:

The traditional art finished, I took a photo and in Photoshop made some corrections -for example, some of the heads in the drawing were actually disproportionate to the bodies, so I fixed that (probably the most obvious fix). Then digitally added a background and all finished!:

. . . in case you forgot, here it is all finished!

I went with a cooler color scheme as opposed to my usually warm palette, so this piece stands out color-wise from other work I've done (which is kinda fun).

All in all, I'm really happy with how it turned out :-)

~m.d.

Attack on Titan (with progression shots)

I took a nice, LONG break from drawing. . . with Sakura-Con and the wedding, I was going crazy creating art stuff and got a bit burned out. I needed a rest.

But I've recovered now and have picked up my pencil to start drawing again ;-)

When I started drawing this piece, I decided I wanted to document its progression. I don't know about anyone else, but as an artist I am fascinated by the process of art. Even when I'm the one making it!

So here we go:

First layout out the shapes and lines. Everything is pretty rough at this point, but it's a matter of figuring out what I like and what I don't like to evolve proportions as the piece progresses. 

I've cleaned up some lines and fixed some things I felt were weak or incorrect in the initial sketch. My lines are starting to get stronger.

There's some odd shading I'm going to attempt, so here I'm penciling in some of the areas I'm not sure about to see how the ideas I have will look. I'm also starting to bold some of the important outlines.

Focused on bolding lines and building more shading shapes. I'm also starting to test some different shapes for the background elements.

More bolding, more shading.

The shading part takes a lot of time. . .

Building up some darker values.

Finished pencil piece. This piece isn't intended to be a finished piece in and of itself - there are things purposely left imperfect or unfinished because I know they'll be resolved when I digitally color the image.

This piece is based on a scene in the anime "Attack on Titan" - one of the grittiest, creepiest animes I've ever watched. It also has some of the most intense moments I've enjoyed in an anime series, including the one I drew here. This is the main character, Eren, sacrificing himself to save the life of his childhood friend. He's actually in the mouth of a giant monster, about to be swallowed. In the anime this moment is always shown from a side angle - never straight on like this. Yet, when I picture the scene in my head, this is what I see.

Hope you enjoyed looking at the steps that brought this piece to life!

~m.d.

Sakura Con 2014

Well, my sister convinced me earlier that we should sell again this year at Sakura Con. I thought she was crazy - one year of intense preparation and stress was certainly enough!

But, I'm crazy too and I agreed to give it another run ;-)

Being aware of what I needed to have to be prepared, I knew I could offer a more solid performance this year. And when I think I can improve, you better believe I'm going to give something another attempt! So, after months of hard work and planning we found ourselves again in Seattle on April 18th & 19th to sell some artwork (BUM-BUMMM!!!).

(the escalator at the entrance to the convention)

(note:  because this was my second year at Sakura Con, I'm not writing about the experience in as much detail as I did for my first year - for a more detailed review of the Artist Alley experience, click here )

My sister had to set up our table initially without me - she hadn't checked the hours we'd have access to the Artist Alley the night before the convention and my work schedule conflicted. She went with my new sister-in-law Laura and they set up, but unfortunately she didn't remember how I put things together last year (sigh). So we got in very early on Friday so I could unbuild/rebuild some elements of our display.

 Alicia had decided that this year she didn't want to emphasize selling much jewelry, so the focus of our entire booth was the prints and bookmarks (with just a few extra things on the side). I also bought a pair of fake cherry blossom branches to put on the top of our booth. For some reason when I think of artist alley booths I think of fake cherry blossoms. . . so I wanted to have some!

(Alicia sitting at our table after we'd properly set up)

Luckily, we timed our arrival well and had plenty of time for set up. Although if I do this next year, I need to remember to get painter's tape. . .

This year I had 6 additional prints (!)  and created a whole new range of bookmarks to match.

(my view of the table from my seat behind it)

 My sister Alicia also offered two prints of her artwork and a couple of bookmarks as well.

You can see all the prints I brought to sell here

This year, our big performers yet again were:

 I was surprised that this time Inuyasha actually outsold Sesshy! (by 1, but still!). I actually sold out of Sesshy 8x10s. 

The rest of the lineup was pretty tight - there were a few surprise dark horses in there, but all of the prints did very well overall. 

(it's difficult to take a discreet shot of people looking at my art, but I managed this one of a cosplayer dressed as a TARDIS)

We actually took in more money this year than last year, which floored me - our first day was quite slow and I was honestly worried. Luckily our second day we more than doubled the sales of the first day - it was a busy day! Being busy made the day go by very quickly, which when you're sitting behind a table for 8 hours you appreciate :-)

Not to mention how much I appreciate the people who took the time to look at and comment on my art. Being at a table, talking to people about your artwork - it's a wonderful, meaningful experience. Each interaction is a treasure. And I still find myself feeling surprised and flattered when people buy my work. One girl purchased over $40 in prints and I found myself starting to blush!

It was interesting because my experience with the group overall was a bit different from last year. I got more comments on my overall technique than I did on any particular pieces. People didn't seem to connect as strong with individual pieces, there were usually several that they commented on and debated between when purchasing. Maybe because I had more strong pieces to sell this year? I'm not sure why the difference. Also, not as many people recognized my piece from From Far Away - although I did end up with one fan who was over the moon about an Izark necklace my sister made from a drawing I created ;-)

(a photo I snapped as I was walking around Artist Alley - lots of people!)

Like last year, there are things we took away that we would do differently - but nothing major. All in all, we had a really good time.

Alicia asked if I will plan to sell again next year. . .my answer is a resounding "we'll see" ;-)
~m.d.

Sakura-Con 2014 - PREPARE!

Lately, I've had TWO HUGE projects on my plate. And as of tonight, I'm done with ONE of those projects (at least, done until the second project is over). And that one huge-but-now-completed project?

PREPARING FOR SAKURA CON.

I've dedicated this last week to wrapping up all the art, designing, and ordering necessary to be prepared for the Con coming up in April (the weekend after the wedding reception for my brother, which is the OTHER huge project I'm working on - I know, right?!). I'm exhausted and excited.

Oh! So here's my latest piece JUST COMPLETED yesterday - inspired by the movie Spirited Away:

It was a massive struggle and didn't turn out how I had planned, but I'm really happy with how it did turn out (and the fact it turned out at all, to be honest!). It was the last piece of art I planned to have complete for Sakura Con and I feel like it's a strong addition to my collection.

I also updated several of my pieces to prep them for printing - including changing this piece up a bit so that the message I wanted to capture is literally part of the art now:

The shape of the crop and the yellow/purples of the text/boxes was, funnily enough, inspired by the fact this Con is always over Easter weekend (the colors I picked feel Easter-y to me and the oval crop shape was me thinking about an egg). I like the spring feel and the overall lightness visually that the crop and text ended up giving it.

I also designed/ordered new bookmarks to bring - they were a big hit last year!

My little prints of Ludo from the movie Labyrinth sold really well last year (surprisingly!), so I took a chance on creating a Labyrinth-themed bookmark with him on it (third from the bottom for those who don't have a clue what I'm talking about). Even if NONE of them sell I love how it turned out and will personally use my stock of them to mark my own books ;-)

It's a weight off my shoulders to have all this stuff taken care of and at the printers. Fingers crossed everything prints well.

Now my plans are to sorta relax tomorrow, allow myself to do a couple of fun things, and switch gears so I can really get into reception planning. I'll probably do some shopping for the reception decoration supplies I need, but other than that I'm going to force myself to take some time off or I know I'm going to burn myself out.

Phew. I'm going to bed.

~m.d.

Spirited Away © Disney

Inuyasha & Kagome

One piece of art I really wanted to have for Sakura Con this year was a new piece of Inuyasha/Kagome fan art. Over my early years as a fan artist I did several Kagome and Inuyasha pieces but I never felt like I did their characters or relationship real justice in my work.

Some examples of what I'm talking about:

I put a lot of thought into what I wanted to do with these characters now.

I decided to create a piece based on very popular images of Inuyasha - but re-imagined my own way. Basically two images/visuals inspired this new piece:

One, there's a popular official image of Inuyasha (I should probably mention here that he's the dog-eared one, in case you have no idea who in the drawing I'm talking about) that shows him with his hand extended. It's great because it looks like he's welcoming you in and the whole series is about joining him on his adventures in Japan's past. But it's also a very out of character image of him - his nature was more to fight or to ignore, not to welcome.

Two, I've always like how it looks when Inuyasha and Kagome are posed standing back-to-back.

I combined these two images/ideas and put my own unique spin on them for this piece. The driving idea behind my drawing was that I wanted to incorporate the popular visual of the extended hand, but as Kagome's hand instead - she was always the welcoming one and reaching her hand out with a smile is completely in character. For some reason, I also really wanted to draw Inuyasha eating his favorite food, instant ramen. In this drawing it worked, since I wanted to convey the "oblivious" aspect of his character (and giving him a surprised and a bit clueless expression with ramen hanging out of his mouth definitely conveys that).

I took some in-progress photos as I drew, so I was able to put together a rough slide show of its progression :

The biggest changes are always made in the step after I scan the pencil drawing and correct on the computer all the proportional issues I wasn't able to quite get right on paper. I think in this progression you can really see that.

Here's a static copy of the final piece:

While I definitely used references for parts of this drawing (and, as I said, was inspired by several very popular Inuyasha official images), a surprising amount of this piece was drawn straight out of my head. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I think I captured the spirit of these two characters in a way that will speak to fellow fans - at least, it speaks to my own fluttering fan girl heart ;-)

~m.d.

Inuyasha, Kagome © Viz Media

(update 11/29 - I played with this piece a LOT over the year since I first drew it, trying to get it to feel just right to me. . . this is the result that I'm sticking with for now and calling "final"):

Princess Jellyfish

Last week I found/binge watched an anime called "Princess Jellyfish" ("Kuragehime"). It popped up on Netflix and my curiosity was piqued. Although the summary sounded strange, it didn't sound so strange I wouldn't give it a try (I kinda grade "strange" in anime storylines on a curve, hahaha!!).

And I'm glad I gave it a chance. I ended up with another new favorite series!

It's the hilarious story of a shy artist who lives in a house full of homely, unemployed, socially awkward female nerds. Each housemate has their own obsession - one is obsessed with trains, one with old men (?!), one with a TV show, and one with traditional Japanese dolls and clothing. They're all single and anti-men (they joke they're nuns, since they're too shy to interact with members of the opposite sex).

The main artist character has an obsession herself - jellyfish. She used to visit aquariums and discuss the beauty of jellyfish with her mother, who has now passed away.

One evening our artist happens to meet an assertive, beautiful, stylish girl - a girl who embodies being a princess, everything the artist's mother used to talk about her becoming. This beautiful girl meets our artist by helping her out in a situation, and subsequently ends up following her home and staying the night in her room. The next morning, the artist realizes that who she's let stay the night isn't a beautiful girl - it's a boy who dresses as a girl!

Shy, homely girl + outgoing, attractive cross dressing boy + a house full of nerdy girls = absolutely hilarious storytelling with some interesting character development (and an odd love triangle) thrown in.

So, I had to draw a tribute piece (note:  this has been updated from its original version):

The boy (Kuranosuke Koibuchi) is dressed as a girl wearing the "jellyfish" dress (although I've modified the dress that the anime and manga show slightly to match my own vision for a jellyfish dress) and the shy artist character (Tsukimi Kurashita) is the kneeling girl. Later in the series these two characters end up collaborating on creative projects - including dress design inspired by jellyfish.

The drawing itself was done in pencil and then colored in Photoshop with a texture applied for visual interest.

Now that this drawing is done, I should be able to focus on the art on my to-do list for the upcoming Con. . .unless I get distracted by another new show. . .

~ m.d.

Princess Jellyfish, Kuranosuke, Tsukimi © Funimation

Kikyo

This watercolor painting (with pencil showing through) I created mostly while I was down with a pretty gross cold. I had this image in my mind of the character Kikyo from the anime Inuyasha and felt committed to realizing my idea as well as I could.

The lineart took me forever to get just right - I'm grateful my sister Alicia can't help but be honest when she gives feedback, it helped me notice and fix a couple of issues ;-)

I plan to sell this as a print at Sakura Con - but I know it won't be a strong seller and I didn't create it with selling as my motivation.  This piece was more for me, more a challenge as an artist that I enjoyed. 

It reminded me of back in my early days of fan art, when I used to draw this character ALL THE TIME.

(here's one of the "best" Kikyo pencil drawings I did back in 2006)

It's fun seeing how far my art (and my Kikyo!) has come.

~m.d.

Inuyasha, Kikyo © Viz Media

Black Butler fanart

My sister recommended a new anime for me to watch - one she'd heard of but hadn't actually watched herself called "Kuroshitsuji" ("Black Butler"). Since I enjoy watching random stuff in the evening to help me unwind, and since they had the series available on Netflix, I decided to give it a try.

After watching it, there are things I liked and things I didn't like about the show - the interesting relationship between a boy and the demon he's contracted to serve him did catch my attention and fascinate me throughout. The butler/demon character, Sebastian, may now be one of my favorite anime characters.

Since it's been a while since I created any new fanart, I let myself get inspired by the two main characters in the series - the butler (Sebastian) and the boy he serves (Ciel Phantomhive, pretty epic name right?). I had some other ideas I considered for a pose, but this one seemed to work out best so I went with it.

I decided to try an experiment and take a traditional approach with this anime fanart - create a watercolor painting. Often the manga (graphic novel) versions of these series feature artwork done in watercolors, so it seems an appropriate medium.

I took a couple of cell phone photos of the process that I thought I'd share:

 Pencil drawing before any painting. I debated inking my outlines but decided that I wanted to try for softer lines in this piece.

 After a few hours of painting. I started by painting in gum arabic to protect the areas I wanted the paper white preserved and filling in the flat coloring of the clothes and skin. Then I came back to add shading and blend it in.
I was frustrated because it turned out I am completely out of black watercolor - and painting "Black Butler," you kinda need black!! I had to mix my own black using what I had, so my blacks turned out . . .interesting. But not necessarily in a bad way.

The finished watercolor painting (with a few touches of white acrylic paint and ink)! Not the best photo of it- this photo was taken next to a dim artificial light with my cell phone camera, which doesn't do well capturing details.

After taking a better photo, I worked in Photohop on a few digital touch-ups to the painting. Then I added a background (which I created using several different elements) to create the final piece:

I actually am pretty proud of how this turned out - every time I do something with watercolor paints that doesn't look completely awful, I'm usually pretty proud :) Watercolors are hard! But this experience has encouraged me to try a few more fanart projects from this traditional approach. And I do have a few more ideas, too. . .

~md

Black Butler/Kuroshitsuj, Ciel, and Sebastian © Funimation

Seattle Sakura Con 2013

Once upon a time, I did this crazy thing. I decided to go along with my sister to sell as an artist in Artist Alley at Sakura Con (an anime convention in Seattle, WA). And, many months of hard work later, on March 28th I found myself driving up to the Washington Convention Center to set up my display.

 

(driving under the convention center, in all its glassy glory)

 

Artists can come in and set up the day before the convention begins, so my sister and I took full advantage. We headed into the chaos of booth construction and found our own little half-a-table in the 500 section of the Artist Alley.

And now, the fun began.

Turns out I'm quite handy with planning and construction - the display was my design and I took on most of the building too (as is logical, since I understood the design the best). My first display design ended up not working (we were attaching wire racks directly to our PVC pipe frame, which then became too wobbly), so we tried Plan B (which luckily I had sketched up as well when I was figuring out possible layouts for our display). Plan B had the racks supporting themselves independently in an L shaped display, and it turned out excellently.

first display (in progress) = fail                                                 second attempt = SUCCESS!

And so, the filling of the display  began. But only to a certain extent - most of the product was coming with us the next day. You can see my nice big prints on display though :-)

Then, dawned March the 29th. . .and I, with only four hours of sleep and a bag full of grapes, ventured in the early hours once again north to Seattle.

(hehehe. . .too perfect!)

(my sister and cousin, both of whom came the first day with me!)

And thus, once again, we descended upon the convention center . . . although now, it was much more crowded with excited Sakura Con attendees. Luckily for us, we had about an hour to prepare before the doors opened on the Artist Alley.

 

(Katherine and Alicia getting everything ready - Alicia, my sister, sold her jewelry at the con which is what they're setting up)

(other artists getting their booths ready)

Aaaannnnddd. . . . ta-dah!!!  Our little four feet of artistic glory.

(no. . .we don't take ourselves very seriously. . . )

And thus, 2 days of an incredible adventure began. Sure, that adventure was spent mostly sitting doing nothing that can be labeled "productive" (I did a lot of people watching, joking, and staring off into space), but there were shining moments that made the slow parts sooo worthwhile. Moments when groups were gathered around my booth, and people (staring up at my large prints overhead) struggled against each other to be the first to get up to my table. Moments when friends from the online website where I post my fan artwork came up and introduced themselves to me in person. Moments when people smiled and told me my artwork was really good, or would use awesome adjectives to describe what I had created, and I could tell from their faces that they really meant every word. The moment when the girl recognized Izark and Noriko from "From Far Away" - and bought my print. And the woman who spent $30 on prints and bookmarks. And the native Japanese man who told me my kanji was "incredible" with true admiration in his voice. 

Another moment - or moments, I should say - was every time someone wanted to pay to own a piece of my artwork. It may seem weird, but as an artist, that's an incredible feeling. When the couple dressed as Marshall Lee and Fionna begged me to sell them my display 11x14 when I was all out, even though there were a couple dings and scrapes on that particular print. . .and insisted on paying full price for it. "It's pretty much a family portrait!"

And, of course, there are the cosplayers. . .

It was two exhausting days, but two days of concentrated awesome in moments of glory. And I will never forget it.

Prints that sold the most? These two were the stars:

Although, this piece also sold very well:

 

As did this one:
 

Those were the most popular prints. But I sold a smattering of everything - every piece I made sold at least one bookmark (can you believe that?!). And I sold a unicorn horn headband and a couple zodiac key chains too!! Financially speaking, I made back everything I spent preparing and even cleared a profit!! So how can I not be thrilled?! :-)

(the streets of Seattle filled with Con goers)

Plus, the weather during the convention was beautiful. So it made for two days of beautiful long drives.

What more could I have asked for?

Some people have asked me if I will do it again. I don't know if I will. Fan art is fun, but when it becomes about profit it changes how you creatively approach ideas. And I don't know if I feel up to creating enough new fan art (and getting involved in enough new fandoms) to keep myself competitive in that field. But it is a lot of fun. We'll see.

What I'm taking from this experience really is being encouraged as an artist overall. I feel brave, like I'm proved myself - and it's a good feeling. A feeling that I will take to some of creative projects I've put on hold as I've prepared for the Con (that I can now resume). To ideas for artwork I want to pursue. 

I always feel like calling myself an "artist" is a ongoing battle - that I must prove myself worthy of the title. The label of "artist" is not something I feel I can just take and wear, like a hat or a pair of shoes. It is not something that becomes a part of me I can put on and forget.  I would say it's more like a crown whose weight constantly reminds me of its presence. A symbol greater than myself that if I want claim to, I must fight battles and defend my right to it. Prove myself worthy as its wearer.

Well. . . battle = won. At least for today :-)

And so, it's farewell for this year, my Sakura Con friends . . .

(my sister at our booth right before closing the second day, note that several of the large prints have been replaced with smaller ones because they sold out!)

Thank you for the incredible, incredible adventure!!! ♥

~md