Beauty On The Beach

It's been a few weeks since my last update.  In that time frame I decided I was going to start doing less fan art and start doing more original art with my own characters.  I decided to finally make good on a project that began its life more than 7 years ago and has been more or less in development hell since then.  The idea was to create a type of swimsuit magazine featuring my various female characters.  Its working title at the time was Girls Of Combat, but today it will be named something else (unsure at this point).  In those 7 years I also started writing what would eventual become a full-fledged novel.  The primary character was a girl named Laurel who discovers she is the last survivor of a werewolf family caught in a centuries-old battle.  Laurel arguably became my most important character and it's also probably fitting that she be the cover girl for my swimsuit project. 

The image at the right will eventually become the cover for my project.  This marks the 2nd image I've drawn since returning to using regular graphite pencils as opposed to mechanical pencils.  This one was drawn using a 4H lead.  It's a little light for my taste, so I'll probably switch to using traditional 2H leads moving forward.  This is the 2nd of approx 20 images I will be drawing for my project.  I don't have a specific time frame for completion, but I am aiming to launch it before the end of the year.

FIGHT ON: Fulgore

"Fight On: Fulgore"

If you were a gamer in the 90s, you probably heard of Killer Instinct.  Killer Instinct was Rare's attempt at a fighting game and it was pretty good.  I never really got into fighting games too much and still don't today, but I did enjoy the character designs and the music.  Front and center on the game's Super Nintendo cover was none other than cyborg Fulgore.  The sketch on the right was done for a tribute gallery at Deviant Art devoted to Killer Instinct.  This sketch was intended as a semi-redesign of his look.  His design assumes he wears some sort of body suit with armor plating over the largest areas.  I used Predator masks as a point of reference when tweaking Fulgore's mask.  It's still pretty similar, but is significantly more angular and sharp.  The claws also were heavily inspired by the Predator blades.  I will be colorizing it later this week.

Frost In The Air Colorized

"Frost In The Air" final

Finally got around to adding colors to this one.  This one wasn't too bad to color.  I knew from the outset that the strength of this picture would be lie in how well I could render the ice.  I know the ice isn't technically realistic in how ice would respond in reality, but given that the ice is unnatural in the first place I didn't think it a big deal.  I aimed to do everything here in very cool colors.  I considered using color holds for Frost's skin, but ultimately decided to leave it as is. 

Purr Of The Catwoman

"Kitty Purrs" sketch

I didn't notice until recently that I haven't really drawn any DC Comics characters outside of Supergirl.  That changes with this sketch, titled Kitty Purrs.  This was done as gift art for a friend.  Nevertheless, this marks my first attempt at drawing Catwoman in any form.  When I started this sketch, I had the purple bodysuit in mind.  However, I thought the costume was a bit bland, so I decided to integrate some aesthetics from the Arkham City outfit.  I also made her ears more curved than usual.

When I first started with the sketch, I drew her head and shoulder-to-shoulder width far too large.  They looked pretty big compared to the rest of her body not to mention that also made the boobs look really big.  So I basically had to erase everything from the rib cage up and redraw it, which is what you see here in the final.

In keeping with the recent trend of including easter eggs in my backgrounds, there's a few in here (some of you may already know them):  First, there's a silhouette of Batman on the building outside her window.  Beneath that are 3 claw marks, a nod to Wolverine.  Starting on the top is a modified Riddler Trophy from the Arkham City game (it's modified for space reasons).  The middle shelf has a batarang from the current string of Batman films.  The last one is a mannequin's head wearing Mileena's torn mask (a nod to the Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe game).  With putting those "trophies" in her room, I was thinking of Catwoman as more of a treasure collector.

Frost In The Air

"Frost In The Air" sketch

Mortal Kombaaat!  *Pumps fist into the air!*  If you were a gamer in the 90s, you probably know all about Mortal Kombat.  Infamous at the time for its heavy blood and violence, Mortal Kombat was one of the most popular arcade games ever.  Frost made her debut in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (chronologically it was MK5).  The design she has in this sketch is a variation of her alternate costume in the game.  I signed on to do this picture as part of the  Mortal Kombat Tribute Round 2.  The pose I had in mind at first was to have Frost appear to be skating towards the viewer with her hands outstretched behind her shooting out ice blasts.  However, I soon found that pose to be too tricky to execute, so I rigged up a model in DAZ Studio and used that to help me with a pose.  

Hands and feet are the bane of many artists and that remains true with me.  Getting the angle of the feet and her right hand correct were the toughest parts of this sketch.  The feet I eventually managed to cheat a bit on, but the right hand required numerous restarts and tweaks to finally reach a position that I felt was passable. 

Frost's alternate costume is very similar to this, but not exactly as it's drawn here.  Because I decided to run with the idea of her costume being constructed entirely of ice, that meant I had to leave out the sash that was on the front.  If everything about her costume was frozen, it would've looked really odd to have a piece of it frozen solid floating between her legs.  The background is my interpretation of a close up on the Lin Kuei temple.  I thought about placing mountains behind her originally, but decided the temple would be both simpler to draw and more relevant to the character.  I aim to add colors to this one very soon.

All Behind Claire Sketch

"All Behind Claire" sketch

Here is my newest sketch.  Currently titled "All Behind Claire", it's a re-envisioning of my old Claire picture (which was talked about a couple of posts below this).  The idea is largely the same, but the vision for it has changed.  Creatively, this one was a struggle to get through.  Had numerous issues with getting parts of the body to look right.  I'm still not sure about the legs, but one can't dwell too long in perfecting.  Overall, I think it's very good.

One notable difference with this version is the inclusion of the Claire-related easter eggs on the monitors  If you're not familiar with the Resident Evil games, you probably won't recognize them.  From top-left they are Mr. X (Resident Evil 2), William Birkin Form 3 (Resident Evil 2), Mutated Steve Burnside (Resident Evil: Code Veronica), and Mutated Alexia Ashford (Resident Evil: Code Veronica).  The aesthetics of the characters here are based on their Darkside Chronicles versions.  Originally, I wanted to include Nemesis and brainwashed Jill Valentine, but decided not to since neither were directly related to Claire.

I plan to color this one eventually.  For now, I'm moving on to my next sketch, a piece that will feature Frost from the Mortal Kombat series.

Essential Tools Of The Trade: Artist Easel

I've been doing art for probably 15 or so years and I never thought to buy one of these.  It's a bit cumbersome if you don't have the proper space set out for it, which I don't but I manage.  This was the best and most affordable version of the easel I found at my local Hobby Lobby (after an official Hobby Lobby 40% off coupon from their website here as well as local taxes, it came out to about $20).  Ideally, I would prefer to have a complete drafting table, but this will do for the time being.  Any of you who do any type of art should definitely consider getting one as it puts far less strain on the back from slouching over.

Some other notes: As shown in the picture, I'm using Canson Fanboy Comic Book Art Boards for doing my art.  Although you can really use any type of paper for art, I find that using boards such as this can help make pencil work and subsequent scans cleaner.  They're not necessarily cheap, so I'd suggest picking some up when there's a sale.  If you have one near you, I'd recommend checking out Hobby Lobby or Michael's Craft Store for them.

I'd also recommend using a good eraser for doing art.  The classic pink ones are fine for doing general purpose stuff, but they don't fare as well for art work.  The erasers I use are Hi-Polymer erasers from Pentel.  They're pretty good at cleaning pencil lines, though it helps to draw with a light hand.

What's Old Is New Again: Claire Redfield

"Claire Redfield Pinup"

Sometimes (or perhaps many times is a better phrase) an artist creates something that he feels is good at the time, but later on realizes it could be better.  This picture at the right is one such example.  Simply titled Claire Redfield Pinup, this is one of my early works from 2004.  It's not a great picture by any means, but I liked it when I made it 8 years ago.  However, the time has come to do this concept again with a fresh vision.  I abandoned my idea of digitally redrawing some of my old pictures.  Though the Wacom Intuos4 tablet is WONDERFUL for painting and coloring, it is AWFUL for doing precision line work.  I'm sure there are some who can draw just fine on a tablet as they do on paper, but I'm not one of those people.  I found that while redrawing my pictures digitally, it was harder, less fun, limiting, and more time consuming than if I had just redrawn the whole image altogether.  Stay tuned!

Relaunch

If you've visited my blog before, you probably noticed it's undergone a major revamp.  For my general art, I am now using my real name M.D.Villarreal.  I've also added my new logo for that purpose.  It will be on here and on my Deviant Art gallery (which you can find here).  My Krimasen handle will still be used for all my adult artworks.  I will be posting some newer stuff here soon.  As always, the best is yet to come!

The Emperor's Talon

"The Emperor's Talon Redux"

Many of you Star Wars fans out there probably recognize this character.  She is Darth Talon, a Sith Lord in the Star Wars comic books.  She of course wears more clothes than this in her normal appearances (but not much!)  This is actually a restored version of an older drawing I made back in 2008.  I decided that after 4 years of learning and growing as an artist, some of my older pictures could be touched up a bit and improved upon.  Though I always give my best effort, I am always limited by what I've learned at the time.

Going back and touching upon old works is not a new concept.  Whether to do it or not is up to the individual artist.  Most artists I know rarely revisit old works.  I believe revisiting past works can serve as insight into how far along we've progressed as artists.  For those of you who've seen the original version of this picture at my Deviant ART account here might already know this was my single most viewed image of the last 4 years (the original version is currently in storage on DA).  Over the coming weeks I plan on restoring a couple more of my older images.  The next one on the list involves a certain Ms. Judy Nails. :D

Princess Kitana, A Most Dangerous Adversary

"Edenian Princess - Kitana" final

Princess Kitana.  Fans of Mortal Kombat know her as the ninja with the sweet bladed fans.  Any time I see a fan that folds up, I immediately think of it as having blades.  This was my 2nd attempt at drawing the lovely Edenian Princess.  My original effort a couple of years ago had some major anatomical issues.  This one is far better in every respect.  My primary difficulties I had with doing this picture was the perspective of her arm and subsequently her fan blades (which is why they look really big).  I had to pose a model in DAZ Studio to aid me with getting the perspective right.  The background was a modified stock photo I found on Deviant Art.  I had originally tried to draw a waterfall and mountain side behind her, but it didn't come out so well.

I really like my color selection for her clothes and her skin coloring.  Getting skin to look right (especially when so much of it is shown) can be quite tricky.  I've been studying some of the colors by Peter Steigerwald and Nei Ruffino for pointers on how I can improve my own coloring.  Anyone who's ever tried coloring knows that it can be difficult to get right.  But no matter how good someone colors, the anchor of a picture will always be the line art.  I've always said that no amount of coloring can save a bad picture. 

Still Kickin!

"Samus Aran - Birthday Suit" sketch

After what's quickly becoming a routine hiatus of not updating this blog, I have returned yet again this time bearing brand new art.  This sketch to the left marks the first time drawing the Samus Aran character.  Yeah, yeah, another naked woman.  I've drawn many naked women before, but what I strived to do differently with this sketch was to create an original pose from my mind, try to draw decent water, and to try and draw somewhat smoother and cleaner line art.  For the most part, I think I achieved those things.

When I got the idea to do this sketch, I was thinking about how Michael Turner could make things such as water and movement seem so effortless and smooth.  So when drawing this, I made my best effort to make everything appear as streamlined as possible.  The hardest part of this sketch was in getting her outstretched hand to look good, and even then I'm not sure I did the best I could with it.  However, I couldn't derail an entire drawing for a lone hand, so I rendered it as best I could and moved on.  All in all, another solid sketch if I do say so myself.  Drawing is a lot more satisfying if you feel that you're improving and are producing good work.  I plan to add colors to this soon.

Music To Draw To

Like many artistic types, there are certain things that help get the creative juices flowing.  One such thing for me is listening to music.  Most often I'll listen to instrumental music when I'm drawing as words can be distracting.  At the time of this writing, I'm listening to the Armageddon score (from the 1998 Michael Bay film of the same name).  I always thought the film was a masterpiece and a lot of that is helped by the music from Trevor Rabin (and I believe Harry Gregson-Williams as well).  I'm not entirely sure why music helps stimulate creativity, but it always has for me.  When writing stories, I use music to help set a mood.  When drawing, it just serves as fuel to push me along.  Here are some soundtracks from films, television, and video games that I often listen to:

• Armageddon
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon
• Transformers (2007 film)
• X-Men
• Robin Hood (Russell Crowe film)
• Batman (1987)
• Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• Chrono Trigger
• Donkey Kong Country
• Perfect Dark

The Witchblade Beckons

"The Witchblade Beckons" final

Here is the colorized version of my picture.  The armor was probably the toughest piece of doing this drawing and though I didn't do as well as I've seen it done, I didn't think it was bad for a first attempt.  Will of course do better the next time around.  There isn't one consistent version of the Witchblade armor, so it leaves space for interpretation. 

Drawing beautiful hair is perhaps one of the most challenging things when drawing any female character with longer hair.  If not done right, the hair can look flat and boring.  I don't think this is some of my best hair, but I am always learning.

A Labor Of Love

"The Witchblade Beckons" sketch

This particular picture holds a personal meaning to me.  Most images I draw, colorize, and then forget about.  No deeper attachment or meaning to them than that.  What makes this picture special is that it was a character made famous by the masterful hand of the late Michael Turner.  I decided a long time ago that he was the standard to which I would hold myself and I dared not attempt to draw a character he did so well until I felt I could do it justice (the character in question is Witchblade's Sara Pezzini).  I felt my abilities were strong enough now that I could do this picture well and I did.  Granted, it's not a perfect picture (there never is), but I feel it's a great example of the strength of my talent and I am very proud of it.  Coloring it will probably be a pain in the butt, but I'm very pleased with how it's come out thus far.