Inktober 2020

[L.K. [Taikichi]]

I'm going to be doing #blacktober. So I'm going to be working on the black characters in Blade Regalia (and also izabel). Here's a second Regalia option you'll have for Arcturus, an end-game antagonist. This was originally created by my second character designer where he takes the power of a Hydra in the story called the Jet Black Dragon. So I'll be playing catch-up shooting for 31 designs.

[Suuper-san]

#blacktober

lol
and also, TIL that's a thing XD
very nice, glad to have you on board Kesashi!

My wrist is still giving me a bit of gripe so I'm leaving it another day before I try and boot up my high level drawing days. Hopefully spam catching up and then I'll be back on track by teh end of the month.

Also the end of the month is looking choppy for me as I'm going camping. As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to work on this until I finish it, be it a month late or whatever. And that'll count as a win in my books.

[L.K. [Taikichi]]

#blacktober

lol
and also, TIL that's a thing XD
very nice, glad to have you on board Kesashi!

It's a fun little way of avoiding controversy. I got the idea because some of my friends are doing it too. I'm also behind on black and asian character designs, specifically characters from those homogeneous factions. Actual blacktober is mostly just people re-imagining white characters as black characters which I don't think is interesting enough to do for 30 days straight. Because I don't actually have to change existing Blade Regalia characters because there's still tons who haven't been done yet.

Anyway

Your past few artworks have been very ambitious for Inktober, but I do hope you continue to pursue them. I can tell you've gotten very comfortable with sketching and you also have a good habit of working the whole drawing up rather than small sections at a time. The advantage of that habit is you create a drawing that you could argue is finished at literally any point in time.

[Suuper-san]

@Kesashi yeah it's a really cool idea. I've been wanting to get into non-white characters for ages myself as well so at some point I'm going to have to do some :P

and thanks, yeah I'm being quite amibitious with this Inktober, although I'm altering the challenge so far it's just about borderline as far as the official challenge goes. But it's all about challenging yourself and improvibng your art so I'm not so bothered by that.

you also have a good habit of working the whole drawing up rather than small sections at a time. The advantage of that habit is you create a drawing that you could argue is finished at literally any point in time.

I hadn't thought of it like that before, but yeah even my sketches are complete in themselves. Probably my final skill level will be the opposite, and I will finish areas to a high quality before sketching others. I think it's more efficient that way if you're aiming at a high level.

As far as progress goes, my wrist still hurts when I lean on it but otherwise I think I can draw again. I did a tiny bit on the 3rd drawing but hopefully tomorrow will be full steam ahead again. I've got a lot to catch up but so far I haven't been put off.

[L.K. [Taikichi]]

So I'm getting behind and I decided I'll start working with pre-existing Blade Regalia characters. The process of designing them takes a lot longer than the process of drawing.

So this character is named Jianna and she's an end-game antagonist who's already playable in the game, and the reason why I introduced her into the prototype is because I did a poll with my community a while ago and she was a character that a lot of people really wanted in the game.

[Echo_River]

So nice to have you, Kesashi ^^  Jianna looks awesome. Who wouldn't want that badass axe right dere.

Hope your wrist is doing better, Suuper. Progress is progress c: Are you also planning for the next prompts or just working on the current ones?

btw is that your own letter style you're using there? Very simple but makes it really interesting!

Yup ^^ Thanks!

Been busy these past few days so haven't been able to post daily. I've been finding it strangely difficult to draw bodies lately, faces too. (I know these look alright. Just the sketching process hasn't been feeling as smooth q_q)

Days 4-7

[Suuper-san]

@kesashi nice!

@Echo
lovely sketches so far!
don't worry about posting daily, if you can do it, that's great, but it can be quite annoying all the same :P
No I'm just working on each set of 4 until they are complete, as I find it easier to sketch ideas than work on final pieces I definitely would use that as an excuse and just come up with tons of loose sketches and no final pieces haha

FINALLY managed a draft sketch for the first 4
Not sure what stage to do next so I might do a colour draft and then fix errors before inking and proper colouring.
I'm picking up a bit of speed now I think, I've drawn the most today since injuring my wrist and I think I'm ok now.



adding full BG is taking its time but I definitely need it for practice.

EDIT:first colour draft done. I think doing this first gives me a chance to reevaluate stuff before my final commit.

[Suuper-san]

Full force recovery so far.
Colour draft for all 4 done


Also the sharp version looks sharp haha



Hopefully get corrections and lineart done for all today.

[legomaestro]

Dude you've blown this out of the water. Just too awesome. Top right and bottom right are my favourite. This is legit top notch illustration here dude, and such lush colours! I love all of them.

(Sorry and glad that you got better with the hand thing dude. That can suck a lot)

Keep at it!

@Echo totally love your stuff. I've been trying to find a way to make some entries with ballpoint but it's really not working out haha. Cool shading as always and keep at it! The fish one is my favourite.

@ Kesashi Axe gal is bae.

[Suuper-san]

@lego thanks! top right is definitely my favourite, with the cool lighting. Hopefully the final piece carries the same energy.
well I'm aiming at best quality for these so I'm hoping to get some really good illustrations out of them, but it's leaning into unknown territory with skill and knowledge so it's a scary moment in my learning :P
you can also join digitally if ballpoint isn't working out for you!

20 minutes into inking so far:
Definitely need to speed up somehow. Also my whole body aches from focusing really hard.
Although tbh I was expecting around 1-2 hours inking given it's a sort of 6 hour each project thing.
After this whole month is over I'm going to have so much experience on what to do and not to do I hope :P



EDIT:100 minutes in and still not finished the first one haha
but I'm working very precisely and detailed so it's to be expected.

[Echo_River]

@Suuper Glad to hear the wrist is doing better c:

The colouring on your pieces looks so prettyyy. I really like the lighting for the Wisp one.
Lineart lookin' crisp. I'm just admiring the cracks on the wall there LOL. From my own experience, lineart tends to take the longest with that amount of detail. But it's totally worth it in the end.
How did you figure out the placement and angles of the houses?? Towns/cities seem complex to do.

@Lego Nuuu I was looking forward to seeing some of your stuff QAQ Were you following the prompts or just doing your own thing? Maybe you could try drawing something entirely new?

And thankee ^^ Fish-san and Rodent-san have been getting many fans lol.

Days 8-9-10

[Suuper-san]

@Echo thanks
Looks like the wisp one is a favourite with us all
Yeah it's a massive undertaking to work at such a high level but it's necessary for my next evolutionary step haha
Great new ones! Unlike me you're actually sticking to the schedule XD

towns and cities are indeed a nightmare to do, and mine is certainly not as good as it could have been. I was working with basically one type of building so I just drew the ridge of each roof as a guideline first, making sure each house was not lined up with any of its neighbours. If you look through my previous posts you can see the buildup of guidelines from initial idea.
I tried to have a sort of vanishing point but basically went with my gut most of the time for scale.

well 3.5 hours to ink this and it's finally done!!!
I definitely predicted this but I'm going to go wayyyy over the end of the month working continuously at this quality. It's an expensive gamble at getting good so I'm definitely going to stick with it.
Vanishing points all over the place annoyingly but there you go.

[legomaestro]

Damn that is shaping up too awesomely suuper! This is amazing haha. Gaaaah all those buildings. I really want to be able to fill out scenes like that. Great composition and framing too. I feel the freedom and wonder the lass is feeling hehe

@Echo I ignored the prompts, which actually might be the problem. I overthink things sometimes. Maybe I'll try tomorrows' prompt just for the heck of it. October still has a few days in it yet.

While I like the other ones from a technical point of view I really like 'Hope'. Cheered me up a bit for sure.

[Suuper-san]

Thanks Lego!
Yeah apart from taking up a ton of time, it was basically quite easy to plan the building location and whatever. When I do it again I'm sure I'll be able to do a better job. My advice would be to give yourself a large amount of time like 2 or 3 hours and give it a shot. Putting in a lot of time gives you the chance to hit your full potential because you are putting so much thought into it. You literally gain the skill as you are doing it. Very jump of faith kinda thing. Works well with iteration.

Yeah overthinking is a pain. I just noticed that my note taking app has passed 47000 words in it. Almost all of it is my rambling thoughts and stuff that I want to try out. So the best way I personally deal with overthinking is to procrastinate it and write down what I will think about "later". The trick is that "later" never comes, but you always trust that it will, and so you keep writing down things that you will think about. And because you trust you will think about it later, you get on with whatever you were doing. And the few times that I have actually thought about it later, half the problems have solved themselves anyway or had really easy solutions.

Anyways work was super long today and I overslept because of the cold morning feeling.
But finally managed to overcome a mental block that was preventing me from jumping straight into important projects, and did a little regardless of my feelings. This is a super major step and I hope that I can keep that up.

It's a start. Also I can't draw any sort of plant I instantly realised.



EDIT:
nearly 1 hour in, making progress slow but steady. Lots of regret at not knowing what I'm doing but it's making me very aware of areas I need work in so it's actually quite beneficial, at the cost of my emotions :P



EDIT2: work was crazy, didn't get much drawing done the rest of the day

drew possibly the worst hands ever for my second piece. I'm going to fix it up but man that's a lot to fix. being ambitious can have it's drawbacks, but as always, learning how NOT to do it is just as vital.

[Echo_River]

Your plants look good, suuper. I like the shape of your leaves. Really, anything goes for flora. The number of weird, wacky, and what-the-heck plants out there is terrifying. I think it gets tricky when you want to make it look dense but still easy to see. What I end up doing is covering up any further detail with the ground haha.

Keep up the good work! >w<

Days 11-12-13