Speed Draw #10: Hopefully Crossover Project, Sensitivity, and Colors

Now that I’ve actually realized how much free time I have now, I’ve gotten started on the video portion of my Crossover Project. Stemming from an idea I had to draw Tooru Ichii from A Channel in the style of Black Rock Shooter, I’ve started off with a headshot of Tooru (BRS form). I’m hoping to have a full character draw, complete with outfit, uploaded sometime in the coming week. This will (hopefully) lead up to a series full-scale crossover images.

The biggest improvement with this video is the modification in settings to my tablet. I essentially eliminated the sensitivity to get a continuous, uniform mark (lining was certainly less of a pain). Hopefully this means cleaner final products as well as shorter work time and less stress on my part as an occasional perfectionist. But let’s be honest, my biggest hurtle is my own laziness :3

Anyway…ACA has the next step in creating your own anime cel once you’ve drawn out your idea.  Using (preferably two) colored pens, draw boundary lines that will define where two or more colors will meet, particularly in places that aren’t already defined by a line traced onto the clean copy piece of paper. Keep an eye out for areas such as shadows, highlights, or anywhere the tone of color could change. Lines in cluttered areas can be identified with much more ease by utilizing multiple pens with varying colors.

Now watch as your character comes to life when you begin to add color! This is where you can let your creativity shine as you use varying tones and warmths in your color choices. Using a color chart that labels each color with name or number can help you identify it later when you color your cel. Mass produced coloring products usually come with a color code, so feel free to use that, writing two or more numbers when you combine colors. Jot down the colors you will be using for every specific area on your illustration. If you’re having trouble deciding which color to assign, try coloring your rough draft with color pencils. For your information, cel paint can be mixed so let your imagination go wild! Create your own array of colors.

Next time, we’ll be looking at starting putting color to acetate. In the meantime, if you want some professional anime cel art to hang up in your anime lair, check out Anime Cel Art on Facebook, Twitter, RightStuff, Amazon, or eBay. Like I said, I’m wanting to get the next one done within the week, so hopefully the next lesson will be soon as well :3

Speed Draw #9: A New Banner, Cel Art Rough Drafts, and Sincere Apologies

Back after roughly a week off, long story short, life is a mess and I made priorities. The good news is that I only have about 2 weeks of school left before sweet, sweet summer vacation. I’m very upset that I haven’t been able to regularly put out new speed draws, and a lot of ideas I’ve had over the past months have ridden the back burner until I can find days with free time. But I made time for the new banner for Spring 2012. Although the final product didn’t include some of the things I had planned for (I decided at the last minute to not bother putting in Tansan), I’m still pleased to see that I’m improving, however slowly that may be.

In addition to the new banner, be sure to check out the NewAnimeFanArt and my personal DeviantART page for other sketchs and projects. Currently, I’m working on a crossover idea, and want to do speed draws for a few Winter 2012 series as well. So look forward to it :3

Previous Speed Draw and Anime Cel Art Post

Also on the docket, we have the beginnings of any anime cel art, the rough draft. It’s pretty cut-and-dry really, the only limit being your own commitment and creativity. Start with any plain sheet of paper (preferably clean without any indent marks left behind from previous drawings) and just sketch out your idea. It can be a simply pose, headshot, chibi expression, or more complex like a full out battle scene, romantic encounter with complementing scenery…just be prepared to essentially draw it again when you break out the tracing paper. Use tracing paper, one, because it’s thin enough to see through to reproduce and clean up your drawing because you’re essentially drawing it again, and second, because you’re going to flip the drawing later in the process of making an anime cel work of art!

What’s the next step? Well, Alex from Anime Cel Art is making us wait until next time to find out. If you’re interested in your own piece of anime cel art from popular series such as Bleach, Naruto, and One PIece, check them out on Facebook and Twitter, and browse cels for sale on their site, as well as eBay and Amazon.

Another note to any anibloggers living in the southeastern United States, I’m currently looking at helping put together an anime convention, with an anime blogging panel. Please contact me if you live nearby or if you can possibly travel. The current target date is November 2012, most likely the weekend before Thanksgiving. Any bloggers interested in participating in the panel will receive free passes to the convention and while nothing is concrete at the moment, we have a list of prospective guest speakers and sponsors.

Until next time,
- BeldenOtaku

Speed Draw #8: Tsukasa Hiiragi

Back with a new speed draw this week, Lucky Star’s resident cute girl, Tsukasa Hiiragi. Along with a new speed draw, I’ve also got a new deviantART account on deck. I honestly had no intention of making one, but it couldn’t hurt, so I took 5 minutes to set one up.

Thoughts on this week’s video: like some have already pointed out, the left leg seems a bit “off”, to that I’ll say this, it’s an odd pose and bending joints are tough, but I’d like to think I did pretty good for winging it. What I really liked about this one was the coloring, not bad for guessing each color from memory :3. One thing that continues to be an ever-present bother is the lining, and I think I’ve reached my limit on how well I can do it using a tablet that requires drawing in one place and looking in another. I’ve been looking at the Wacom Inkling as a potential solution to my lining problem. With this, I could just record the sketching process, print, use the Inkling to record the lining, export as a .tif image, and continue recording the coloring from there. But that’ll set me back $200 (at least), so it’s not something I can get at the moment, more like an idea to keep in mind if I ever had the cash flow to invest in new equipment.

Here’s the video, please subscribe on Youtube for more speed draws and feel free to leave comments here or on the video page if you liked it or just feel like telling me all the things I’ve done wrong.

 

In addition to a new speed draw, friends over at Anime Cel Art gave me a bit to talk about the tools of the trade. When it comes to creating animation cels, it takes more than a clear sheet and a few pens, there are also a few precautions you’ll want to take to prevent ruining clothes/skin. Starting off with the cel itself, so-called because they were originally made of celluloid, but are now made of a more durable acetate material which is more preferred in ACA’s case as cels are more of a collectible than a useable media. A special ink or tracing pen is used for lining as they won’t scratch the acetate surface. If you’ve ever drawn on paper, you’ll notice that mark making leaves a small indent on the surface of the paper; well, this won’t fly on acetate cels, hence the special pens and ink. For coloring, brushes with firmer tips are preferred for getting those clean, crisp color lines we’re so used to overlooking :3

In their words, “protect your pimp gear from cel paint stains that linger forever!” by wearing an apron and latex gloves. The gloves also do double duty by preventing naturally occurring oils on your skin from mixing with the cel paints and inks. Like any paint, cel paint tends to lose it’s moisture in open air, so a dropper filled with water is recommended for occasionally adding a few drops to keep the paint fresh. Try to repress memories of that annoying kid in middle school who used tracing paper and tried to pass it off as his own, because tracing paper is very useful for ACA’s work. The thin paper is ideal for copying from original still shots and transferring them onto a cel. It’s also recommended that you keep a rag nearby, accidents happen, and ink is a permanent medium…on everything (trust me).

Next time, we’ll be looking into the process of actually producing a piece of cel art from popular anime series! I’m definitely looking forward to this one :3 Follow Anime Cel Art on Facebook or Twitter to see what they’re working on or to buy a piece of anime memorabilia for yourself.

Until next time,
- BeldenOtaku

Speed Draw #7: Hakase and Sakamoto-san (Nichijou)

Back after a two week long break (from speed drawing, my schedule was quite full) with a compliment to the last speed draw. This week, Hakase (the Professor) and our favorite talking cat, Sakamoto-san, from the comedy series Nichijou. This week, I can definitely feel pride in my work as I’m slowly seeing a progressive growth in my skills. For the second time, the whole speed draw was done from scratch on the tablet (as opposed to scanning a sketch and lining from that). I’m also getting much faster at the whole thing, I attribute part of this to being able to rotate the canvas more easily now. Though I feel stupid for not figuring it out sooner…so, for your enjoyment/criticisms, here’s Speed Draw #7:

As usual, feel free to like, comment, subscribe, criticize, ask questions, criticize, suggest a character for my next video, criticize, generally discuss, or constructively criticize in the comments below or in the comments on youtube. :3

Also on deck today is an interesting little thing I’ve stumbled upon. Because I want to become an animator myself, I have an eclectic interest in the “old style” of animation using cels, as opposed to digital production as is the norm today (for various time saving and economic reasons).  But, if you’re like me, there’s still something to be said for the clean designs and handmade craft of animation cels. That’s where Anime Cel Art comes in. Through cooperation with animation studios (such as Toei), they recreate popular anime series, like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece, onto animation cels. Anime Cel Art currently only seems to have more mainstream anime series (like the ones mentioned above), but I’m eagerly awaiting more niche series to come soon (you have to start somewhere after all). So, I’m putting them out there for any one who wants a unique piece of anime memorabilia. And while not the cheapest thing in the world, $65 isn’t too bad a price for handmade cel art (studios like Disney have sold vintage in-between animation cels for thousands, and that’s the low end price).

While I’m not the biggest Bleach or Naruto fan out there (don’t get me started), I still have to admit the craft and value of these cels are worth at least a moment to appreciate. This is the kind of quality I strive for in my speed draws and I hope to one day reach that level :3

Until next time,
- BeldenOtaku