The collab work I had with Emidy (Manhwa artist from Korea) from this May is done at last!!!!!
Actually, most of the work was done in August/September, but due to our busy schedule, we finally finished it!!
The title in our own languages are as follows: 새로운 시작 (saeloun sijag) 新しい始まり
Emidy: Character, green plant, and idea
Waterdroplet: Background and special effects.
Thank you so much!! 大変有難うございました！！감사합니다 ！！
(in three languages :D)
The character is Aura, who belongs to .hack game and anime staff. As a result, this is a fan art.
Softwares used: Waterdroplet: Photoshop CS2/3, Painter X, SAI (I switched softwares every time they froze on me) Emidy： Photoshop +SAI?? (Sorry if I'm wrong)
>> The photos I took over the weekend during a hike from Ashiya to Arima is not ready for English Blog. So... for a meanwhile, please view my Japanese blog entry if anybody is interested in seeing photos from then. I blurred out people' faces on purpose.
I lost track of when I did these but how the wallpaper is starting to look like:
Day 2 (oi... made her bald as a monk)
Day 3 (started working more on background)
I must say... not much progress since this last image since I was away most of the time during this last three day weekend, and I worked on the next wallpaper last night.
Anyway, photos I took over Sat: This wasn't Sat but a practice with water drops. I used one of those water sprays for ironing... yeah... didn't turn out well:
Sat, my dog's stuffed animal in a miserable condition:
Sky:
and... me: Canon Kiss X3+S18-55 F3.5-5.6 IS Photoshop CS3
now... editing photos I took over the weekend while I hiked with a friend.
Please wait until I finish choosing and editing since I took so many....
has been featured in the main page of loftwork website, a Japanese website that has more than 13000 creators of different genre. It will be posted there for ~ a week- so it will end probably this Fri or Sat.
Thank you very much for the feature!
This is the first time I had my photograph featured in a Japanese website. I had manga and illustrations featured before in other Japanese/international sites, and photograph/illustrations occasionally in individual deviantART news. So I'm happy :D
And... one more great news is that my collab partner got back to me over last weekend- so it will finish within a few weeks probably. We were working on it between our free time between our busy schedules, so it took long- since May. However, the illustration theme is set for winter so I think it's perfect timing... perhaps a bit early.
Following are photos I took over last weekend in Kobe and Kinosaki. I took all of them with a mobile phone, mostly with a new function I discovered over the weekend, so they are weird in some areas:
This is Herb Garden on top of a mountain near 三宮 Sannomiya, Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. Since it's a bit off season, there were mostly leaves... not much flowers other than two-three types. So, enjoyed the view while munching on a lavendar soft-serve (ソフトクリーム）.
Front: Back:
Somewhere mid-way:
Tried to take a shot diagonally:
Ate the soft-serve and went back home:
On the next day- Sunday- I went with a friend to Kinosaki 城崎 for a ride after a bit of important meeting (nothing related to art) :D
Kinosaki is in Hyogo Prefecture but on Sea of Japan side- so I guess my weekend was spent moving around places for over 300 km. Probably with train rides and all- covered 400 km.
Since I had to swing myself around 180 degrees to take previous photos, I decided to take the easy way- by taking a photo while my friend was driving.
Result:
Gaaaaaaah!!
And... a town next to Kinosaki (forgot its name):
nice sunset in a town close to Sea of Japan.
Anyway... I'm currently working on series of wallpapers. Manga needs slight fixing since I'm trying to condense the story into a fewer pages as possible. In meanwhile, wallpaper I'm working on is based on a little survey I put out a week ago, asking people in deviantART about what genre they prefer in wallpapers. I will try to improve the composition on the way.
This is the result:
Thank you very much for answering my survey! :D
Ok... so my purpose of doing this is that I could determine which genre I should start on for series of wallpapers I'm planning to create so I could practice in an organized matter. Since I randomly pick topics often, I wanted to create something that's according to a set schedule. I am currently making wallpapers with genres that had greatest number of answers to least.
Therefore, the current topic I'm working on is fantasy, and I must say I faced a bit of an art block for a week. I would create an illustration and botch it in two days of working on it. So... the first one that I botched was this:
How it looked like in Photoshop:
I used two vanishing points for this one (although I drew a third here but didn't use) then... I began to not see the difference between fantasy and Sci-Fi genre in this sort of drawing. In addition, it looked like something a pre-schooler could draw. So... I botched it.
I had two other drawings I started and then botched. The second one was a bit of Japanese themed fantasy- then botched it since it looked flat. Then, the third one was space drawing. I might use that later but not for these wallpapers probably.
Did a bit of 3D CG practice to get my mind off:
Created this in Photoshop: and used alpha in the material setting to get this effect:
There are many ways of cutting models- Boolean and by clicking one surface one by one- but I think this was the best method to get windows for the building.
I think I will incorporate this skill in the future.
Then, yesterday... I finally got what I wanted for the wallpaper.
I finally settled on something from Aesop's fable, The Honest Woodcutter.
Following are wips:
DAY 1 First, I doodled in SAI, thinking that it would be a 1920X1200 pixel wallpaper:
I meant it to be a guy looking out from a space between buildings or walls- to a bunch of jellyfish or something floating in the space.
SAI had too small brush so I switched to Photoshop and colored in "walls":
Yeah... then I thought it was a crappy idea since it was similar to lines of:
So... I decided to use a different approach by making the bottom right side as water related place:
I've done stuff on shores looking out to water but not this angle so I thought it was suited for this time. Then, it was sort of boring just having a guy and water so I added a nymph, goddess or something from Aesop's fable:
Honest Woodcutter- was it?
Then, started coloring:
I'm planning to not do this in a oil painting style but in lines of semi-realism like:
Photoshop CS3 (used brushes by Jama and concept-on-mac. Thank you.) Photos: Osaka photo I took with a mobile phone a few weeks ago, 素材辞典(Sozaijiten) Vol. 168- probably Tokyo or something. 3 nights?
1920x1200 pixel available for download (personal usage only).
I did it just for fun since satsuki-lo requested it two weeks ago.
This was a bit of hard 3D CG due to moire produced with dark lighting in Cinema 4D. No matter how much I tried- it still sucked. This was a third try- so if you count all of my renders- this took me ~7 hours of rendering.
Oi.
Photoshop CS3 Cinema 4D R11 studio (2 days of modeling on and off, 2 hours and 47 minutes of rendering)
Anyway, here are bunch of photos I took over the weekend:
Lumix TZ-7 (Sat):
I don't think I'm good at taking photos in aquarium.
Temple and a game in city taken with cellphone two weekends ago :
It's a coin game to catch a stuffed toy of Sentokun- a mascot for Nara Prefecture. I was amused by this since Sentokun is modeled after deer and Buddha. Weird combination, I must say.
KissX3+Canon EF100mm F2.8 Macro USM (Sun):
Salad in a restaurant:
Car:
Yeah... I liked to play with overexposed images.
I fixed this little with Photoshop (only this one) to give slightly aged look:
Sky Building in Osaka:
Playing with Bokeh in the car (while stopping for a streetlight):
The clip of a next illust I'm working on:
Somehow, almost all characters have similar hair styles, but I drew line art since I haven't in a while. Compared to the one on top of this entry, it will be a bright and cheerful illustration with a dash of modern theme. I made most of the 3D CG models for the past week. Now, I will have to arrange it so it fits with this line art and start coloring while rendering. Hopefully, it goes well.
