Haru Ichiban's Blog, page 8

30-day trial, Day 1/30: Forbidden 2 at 80%!!

Okay, so today begins my 30-day trial of training from Hell, Kojiro Hyuga style making a picture every day to improve my art skills. Day 1, only 29 to go!
I painted this today. For the first time in a long while, I used references to draw. When I use refs, I feel like a cheater. I get constantly told I need to improve anatomy, and I guess I can only do it using references. So I made Lei pose naked for me in a bunch of floor poses… After taking about 500 pictures and melting my panties, I chose this one.
And guess what… this is the first illustration for Forbidden: New Days, a.k.a. Forbidden 2. Do you remember when Lei tells Sween of a fur rug in front of the fireplace…? Heh heh. Forbidden: New Days is at 80% completion right now. I’d like to publish it in a couple of months, we’ll see. I want the first three novels out by the end of the year.
Overall, this picture isn’t bad. Nowhere where I want to be, though. I wanted the fireplace in the picture, but ran out of space (digital artists never have this problem…) So that yellowish light comes from where the lit fireplace is. The picture is cropped; Lei has an erection in the original.
The specifics:
• Time taken: Approximately seven hours.
• Media used: watercolor pencils with some touches of micromarker and pencil. Warm white 75 grams watercolor paper.
• 30-day trial: Day 1/30, July 5th 2018
• Technical notes to self: The fur rug, Supracolor in Black, sparsely painted, then gray Prismalo and then strokes in black Swisscolor. Watercolor paper of 75 grams works better with as little water as possible. Warm white + cool color=neutral result.

30 Days trial?! Way too scary!

Recently I've come to something like an artist's block. Not in the form of ideas, but in the way those ideas would be implemented. Simply put, I've come to hate my current skills. It can't be that I actually drew better when I was much younger. Instead of evolving, I feel I've devolved. I'd currently rate my artistic ability as a 6/10 or maybe 6.5/10. I can hit 8.5/10 if I really try, like in Forbidden's cover. But that's like giving my 120% and it takes me a lot of time and makes me tired.

Sooo... I've read over and over again that to improve, you should practice as often as you can, preferably every day. That's a bit too taxing, I'd say, and it looks more like a chore than pleasure. But like Steve Pavlina says, why not try it for 30 days? I did that trial once, and I'm still going on (it was about eating sugar only once a day. I felt so much better that I'm still doing it).

So, I think I'll start the trial tomorrow. I have plenty of ideas, but I freak out at the way they'll turn out. I also wonder if I'll be able to do one pic a day... but like it says, it's a trial. I gotta combat my perfectionist tendencies, and just do things.

For starters, I gotta finish the pin-up series (finish? I only have one pic of Lei) and start an Angel Power Compendium. In Forbidden, though there are angels flying everywhere and showing off their powers, I never really specified everything they are capable of, and who is (of course, a Dominion is capable of more things than a quartarian--even if Astaroth doesn't seem to think that way). Sure thing, we only saw four distinct kinds of angels in the first book (black-winged, red-winged, quartarians and Dominions, though gray-winged and blue-winged make a short appearance), and there are so many more books in the future that will have plenty of time to explain more of the universe, but I think it will be nice. If anything, I will add more pages to the Compendium when the time is right.

Okay then, I'll start tomorrow! Hope this kicks me out of this artistic plateau.

Beach Fun

If someone needs to make a study of the differences between an original and a scanned pic, they need to look no further from this one. The background is now much darker and cooler, so I tried to make adjustments (in vain) and ultimately replace the color, to turn it into the pure, beautiful, sunny turquoise it originally was. Guess what: the color doesn't even exist. So well. Here is this mockery of the original picture. I also did it in a slightly grainy paper and the scanner magnified it, so now it looks like I painted it on stone or something.

Rant aside, so many beach scenes in Forbidden. Can you guess where Lei's left hand is? Heh heh. No wonder why both are blushing. (The little perv in the background sure looks like he's having fun too).

I've licensed this picture under Creative Commons, so you can upload this at your place as long as you don't use it for commercial use, crop or modify it. But there are better pics than this one in my gallery....

Winter Cleaning

Decluttering today :)

Forbidden Day 1 - Page 15

Since the sun is setting, I am trying a different shading here, but I think it makes the characters way too pale. I'm also having issues with the line work. Even though I'm using a 0.5 marker for the finest lines (the thinnest that exists), I still feel it's too thick. I think I'll try lining with pencil next, for a more subtle effect. Hope the scanner catches it.

Forbidden #1, Second Edition coming out today... and my second worst nightmare becoming true

This post is mostly for myself.

Today, Forbidden#1, Second Edition is out! Finally, a book I can proudly show to anyone! First Edition was good story-wise, but it had a bunch of grammar errors, too little descriptions (I think I will add even more descriptions along the way) and, the worst part, endless repetitions of words (SIGH! Amazon's correction tools and stuff never points that out!)

Also, my second worst nightmare came true: to have the second release with no reviews, even though I searched everywhere for reviewers, sent personal invitations, posts in many groups, etc., etc., etc.. I guess it's not so bad, since I won't restart promotional offers before my third book (hopefully before the year ends) and I'll still keep looking for the adequate readers for my series. There has to be people interested; it has to be just a matter of trying until I find them. Out of the people who got ARCs from me, only one had the decency of sending me a message that she didn't like my book for generic reasons. The rest just dropped off the face of the Earth.

However, each failure brings me closer to success. And there is a bunch of things I learned from this ordeal, namely:

- I need to trust my intuition more.
- If a person gives five stars to a book where the main character can easily be replaced with a cardboard box with a smiley face drawn on it, they are not likely to like a character like Sween.
- Intuition is a good thing. I need to trust it more.
- I have to remind myself that people my age are usually much, much older than me. And they don't learn new tricks. Physical time means nothing.
- Task for the near future: refine my intuition.
- I am a frakkin' Ikkitousen! I am powerful! I am awesome! Fifteen years ago, a problem like this would have me depressed for months, but right now, it only fuels my wish to succeed! Even a few months ago this would have had me depressed for a couple days, but right now... I shrugged it off and kept working. I have waited for so long to become this awesome!
- Get an intuition upgrade, even a little one.

There's probably more, but I want to go do something else now.

Forbidden Day 1 - Page 14

LOL, this is absolutely my favorite moment of Day 1. Sorry Lei, Sween is so much smarter than you, and an expert on throwing witty comebacks at you. Heh heh.

Sween's Night Form

Yeah, not my best pic ever, and it's quite old. Sween doesn't look the same during the day (sunny look!) as during the night (black hair, yellow eyes) which surprises people. Wings are optional :)

SL_T All I need is U version 2

And the genderflipped version of last post.
Yeah, the scanner cropped the pic a little. Lei is depicted in the novel as having a devilishly sexy smile, but sometimes he just makes it devilish--that's just how I got it here. It makes me laugh how nonchalant and confident he looks even in those clothing. Sween is the dictionary picture of enthusiasm.
The girl in the back? That's Peewee, the Academy student who considers Sween a home wrecker and randomly insults her whenever she's close to Lei.

This is Creative Commons licensed. You can use it at your place as long as you don't use it commercially nor crop or modify it.

SL_T All I need is U

When I saw this T-shirt, I knew I had to draw a picture of it. (I wish I knew who to credit for the idea...) After all, Sween very much behaves like a slut for Lei, but would have never done it without him.
I also want to do the gender-flipped version (since Lei is a slut as well), where I could add Peewee to make it more dramatic (heh heh...)

This is Creative Commons licensed. You can use it at your place as long as you don't use it commercially nor crop or modify it.