CUPdates 3: Experimenting with Brushes and Color

For this week's CUPdates, I decided to get back into drawing more since I've been doing a lot of writing and game design recently for these. I've been fairly busy with traveling and catching up with people the past few weeks, so there's not quite as much to report, but I did do some drawings!

I started off by downloading some of Jinny's brushes that she made, since I wanted to do a digital painting. She kindly provided me with a personalized 2-hour tutorial where I followed along and made a digital painting based on her demonstration, while she showed me how she uses some of her brushes. Here's what I made during that demo:

After that, I decided to get back into making card art for the TCG that I started working on a few years back. I started by using Jinny's brushes and just trying to make a lineless digital painting of Xing: 

It turned out okay, but lineless is something I struggle with a lot, so I was trying to figure out how to make digital paintings in my own style, and something that I like in the end. So with that, I was starting to reflect on the art I've created so far this year. I haven't been creating a whole lot because I've been focused on writing and game design so much, so I was inspired to create something new.

I realized I started sketching out a few story moments from the Glitch Vessels Eventure a few months back, but never finished it. So these are the ones I did back in February:

Looking at those made me realize how those were some of the best drawings I made so far this year. So I wanted to think about what made me like those drawings so much more. It was because while I was creating those, I really got involved in my story and blocked out the rest of the world while creating them. I wasn't worried about how it was gonna look (so much that I even forgot to post them after I made them), I just had fun drawing and expressing the story moments. I did a bunch more as well, but those two I actually ended up coloring and spending more time on.

So I started to read the rest of that Eventure, and then just started sketching story moments as I read and listened to music. And I ended up staying up until like 3am sketching because I was so lost in time and just having a lot of fun drawing. Here are two of the ones I made that night:

In those two drawings above, I had a lot of fun with Jinny's brushes for the colors and added effects. I also experimented more with the colors, where I was trying out different color variations for the light and shadows, and they turned out way better than I normally do. So I really need to jump out of my comfort zone some more and do that more often.

Something I realized from all of this was that I really draw best when I recently read the story moments that I wrote and am listening to the music that I listened to while writing those moments. Because when I remember how it felt in the moment of writing it, it really helps me to get back into the mode for drawing the scene with that same impact. I draw much more loosely and I realize my drawings have more personality when I do this.

So other than drawing, I've also been writing a lot of the Garlint Eventure with my brother. We ended up finishing writing the first half of it, and I really liked how it turned out so far! Not a lot to show on that front since it's a lot of writing, but I'm happy we finally went back and wrote that one, since I've been wanting to write it for a while now.

So overall, while there's not a ton to show for this CUPdate, I do think I'm moving back in the right direction for where I want to take my art, which is a huge improvement and makes me feel better for what's to come. Until next time!

Old Forgotten Posts of 7 Years: Part 2

This is part 2 in my old blog post series. I'm setting the date for 2019 but posting this compilation technically in 2025!

Mr Dude Redesign (December 29, 2019)

For December's Improvement Movement prompt (and the final one of the year!), I decided to redesign Mr Dude! 

Here's his final design! I included the different hair concepts I made in the process too.

And then here is his old design to show a side-by-side comparison of what I improved, too.

Life Drawing (October 19, 2019)

These are some various life drawings I've done the past few months.

Yaguzi's Family (September 29, 2019)

I've been planning out eventures all weekend, so I decided to make the Lynx family tree to try and figure out how this family works. They don't have names yet, but that'll happen soon!

Here's the family tree!

So basically, Yaguzi is 25% deamon (which is about 50% demon). I was playing around with the idea of how deamon traits are passed down through families. I decided that demons likely come about when deamons breed with another species, since they become more people-like. Since Yaguzi's family lives in Compass World, they become demons pretty quickly down the line.

For his grandparents and great-grandparents, I got a lot of inspiration from different types of cats. His great-grandpa is based on a Norwegian Forest cat, his great-grandma a tiger, and then his grandpa a maine coon. This was a lot of fun to make, since I really think genetics is interesting and how important it is in how characters look, in relation to their families.

Ralphie (September 15, 2019)

After a bunch of traveling, it's been hard getting back into drawing often. I've been trying to do some quick doodles to get back into it though.

Here's a quick doodle of Ralphie!

More from The Nays Comic (August 8, 2019)

I realize it's been about a year since I've drawn a comic page. I've been so caught up in writing more of the story and making concepts that I haven't really spent a lot of time drawing the beginning. This was fun, but also took a lot of time to draw, so I guess that's why I haven't been keeping up to date on drawing these. Maybe I'll draw more before another year passes!

Read the previous pages here!

Page 6

Shelter 128 Floor Plan (August 3, 2019)

Here’s a floor plan of Shelter 128. The M and S Nays generally spend a lot of time here when they’re not on missions. Bird-in-Trainings use the computers in here to do work, and one of the Higher-Up Birds resides here to oversee work.

This was originally for this month's Improvement Movement challenge, but I might do another one since I'm not sure if I wanna draw a full illustration of this one yet.

Kominushu (July 8, 2019)

Some more NAD drawings I've done. I usually don't get to do these in the summer, so it's been fun to finally draw some of these more main characters!

Kominushu is the kind-hearted younger sister of Trekkon who looks up to him. She is very calm and gentle and likes to see the good in others. She believes everyone has a little good in them, even if they choose to do evil deeds. Despite the hardships she’s gone through in her past, she has always kept a smile on her face and stayed positive. Her strong-hearted personality has made her very likable and inspired others. She’s close friends with both Clove and Sarah, and will do whatever she can to keep her friends safe.

Hide & Seek (July 7, 2019)

I've been writing the Hide & Seek Eventure, so I decided to do some quick sketches of a bunch of the scenes!

Detective Ragger (May 23, 2019)

Some more sketches!

I've been playing Detective Pikachu on 3DS and it's been making me want to get back to working on Detective Ragger. Maybe someday I'll have time to make games for myself again.

Sketches with Emotion (March 5, 2019)

Sometimes I get that feeling where I put a lot of myself into the sketch and it just flows better and looks less stiff.

Here's a shot from the Eventure I rewrote. Gair's running from the White Cloaks, and in turn, even pushing his friends away in fear.

Gamishness Revisited (March 3, 2019)

I decided to start up this project again of drawing the Eventures of The Nays in the style of games I've played.

This one is Dragon Quest I (or, Dragon Warrior, as I played). I played this game a long time ago, so I don't remember a whole lot about it. This Eventure is Complex.net when Scott and Chozu take over the Bouncy Room, so this is the Bouncy Room Lady trying to defend herself against them.

Midi Inspirations (February 24, 2019)

I've been in the mood for listening to midis recently.

I called this the Music Mania Easygoing Remix since I listened to the songs twice in a row instead of once so I would have time to put quick colors behind them. I'm planning to use these in a game I'm making.

Biggert City Sketches (January 9, 2019)

Some drawings of Biggert City characters!

My friend was jokingly saying we all needed to draw frogs, but I took her seriously and drew Josinda.

 

When DMunn obtains The Gek's powers and takes over his brother.

Mr Dude's House Floor Plan & Illustration

Mr Dude's house is basically his own private World Leader Headquarters while Ginko and the White Cloaks rule his World. This is where he sleeps and does all of his timeline research. It's also the area where The Nays visit when they're in this World.

I did this floor plan for this month's Improvement Movement!

And then I drew a view of the inside of Mr Dude's house, based on the above floor plan. I wanted to focus on the Timeline wall, since that's what he's most known for. This is one of the most important parts of his house that he focuses on and references every day of work.

The Nays Exam Floor Plans

I've been creating some floor plans to help plan out what certain locations will look like in my story.

In The Nays Exam, there's a trust test where one partner must lead the other to the glowing areas while blindfolded. This is actually based on an activity I did with some family members a few years back. I wanted to make a floor plan so it'd be easier to write this part though, with directions.

These are all very rough floor plans that helped me while I was writing, but are very very rough. All three of these are escape rooms.

Gamishness Project Continued!

I decided to continue my Gamishness project, where I draw a scene from The Nays, but in the style of a video game.

This one takes place during the Field Ravens Eventure when Gair first meets Trekkon, Rasake, and the rest of the Field Ravens.

And for this one, I drew it in FF8 style! I actually enjoyed drawing the background more than the characters on this one, because it felt more natural to recreate in this style. Since the PS1 models are not detailed at all, I had trouble emulating that style because expressions is my favorite thing to draw usually. I referenced some scenes of the orphanage in FF8, because those were kind of what inspired the scenes in this part of The Nays to begin with. My favorite part about FF8 is the story, characters, and composition. Obviously there are better looking games out there, but I still really love how detailed the backgrounds are, considering their limited resources at the time. The compositions obviously still hold up really well. The updated resolution in the Steam Mod makes the art look a lot nicer too, but I tried to emulate the old style by sharpening and blurring certain parts, to feel more genuine.

The Nays Concept Art!

Since I've been back in from vacation for about a week now, I've been having an itch for creating more art and story progression for The Nays. These were some pieces I did aside from my daily drawings!

Things happen. Kominushu is one of my happiest characters.

New Lady World is one of the more unique World designs. It consists of multiple floating islands. The lower you go down, the more delusions you experience. New Lady lives on the very top continent, so the wealthier and higher class live on the upper continents below her.

Style Variation!

I've been trying out some style variations to try and get some more motivation recently. Work has been keeping me so busy that it's hard to find time to draw these days, but I'm trying!

I decided to draw another drawing for the Gamishness project I was doing a little while back. 

This one is from TNWTLT Eventure, when future Zandra arrives to warn The Nays about a fearsome foe. And this one is in Oxenfree style! It was hard to emulate the 3D part through a painting, AND I decided to draw all 18 characters that were there (there were even like 5 more not pictured), so I didn't get as much time to spend on details. But the main thing I admire about the Oxenfree style is their text bubbles! so I made sure those looked the nicest. Background are not my strongest point, and that is a huge focus of Oxenfree, so this was a big challenge for me!

I was testing out a bunch of different coloring styles. I also drew this in a style different than I usually draw in. Also this made me realize that I haven't drawn clean lines in like... months?? It took me a lot longer than I thought it would, too.

Quick Environment

This was a fun little project that I did this week!

I made a little environment using basic shapes.

And then I made this little scene into a 3D Environment in Maya.

School Backgrounds

I drew a few school environments and made a quick website connecting these rooms.

Meet The Artist!

I saw a bunch of people doing these and I missed it last time around, so I wanted to do one for myself! I got a little carried away and drew my entire workspace. Although I didn't draw EVERYTHING. There are a lot more cords than there is pictured, but I just didn't wanna draw all of those.

Rough Backgrounds

Since I struggle with drawing backgrounds, I decided to try and make a few background studies as practice.

Inside of a closet (partially referenced the one in my house)

In an old bed room

Inside of My Characters' Minds

Recently I've been working on some world development pieces. Specifically, I've been figuring out what it looks like inside of the characters' minds, since that plays a major role in my story. I've gotten all five of my main characters done, so this was a really fun exercise.

Inside of Ralphie's Mind

Inside of Zandra's Mind

Inside of Pubby's Mind

Inside of Gair's Mind

(I already posted this one earlier)

Inside of Scott's Mind

(I've posted this one before too)

What it Looks Like Inside of Gair's Mind

I've been wanting to draw environments of The Worlds more recently, since I haven't really done a whole lot of those. I've been focusing a lot on developing the characters, but the actual Worlds need some love and care too. So I'm starting off by figuring out what it looks like within all of The Nays' minds. And to start off with the protagonist: Gair! 

This is kind of a Lost Eventure, since I never really showed what happened when Rocko trained The Nays. But I imagine Gair would need to know his way around the inside of his mind (this rocky cave). So him and his imaginary friend (Drogo) are exploring and trying to figure things out.

I did a bunch of thumbnail sketches to figure out a composition that I wanted, to show the characters and the environment.

I decided to go with this thumbnail.

Then I laid down some tones and re-sketched things out.

And then I cleaned up the lines.

I put down some basic colors.

And then I started on adding in some of the shading.

I fixed up some of the shading and did some blurring of background elements.

And then I added the final effects.