Blue D (wip)
Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 8:23 pmI completely finished screwing up the D I had just begun to screw up a few days ago. I had this one in reserve:
This is watercolour and ink with the background and a bit of the figure sketched in digitally. I’ll get the figure finished tomorrow, but might chicken out and do the background in Photoshop.
I figured out while doing this that if you want a thin line in a particular colour, and you don’t want to mix up a whole lot of it, you can just use a brush to load the steel nib with watercolour or ink. Bleedin’ obvious, really. Using the Ecoline inks, you can control exactly where the colour goes and then blend it with water afterwards — this is a good way to lay down small shadows. So I’ve learned a couple of things.
I think I’m doing ok with the colour scheme, but I could have made the costume more aesthetically coherent. I kept the ornaments simple, to reduce the chance of error, but now that I’ve figured out about using watercolours with the pen, I’m sorry that I didn’t make the hat and hair doodads more delicate and elaborate in keeping with the armour. Still, it’s an improvement on the Gwynn picture. I also thought D would look good with a lampshade on his head a little veil on his hat. Now I’m not so sure, but it can’t be removed. I guess stranger things have gone down the catwalk to resounding applause.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Wheeee! I love the textured heaviness in the hair particularly. And thanks for sharing a new method for painting :”D
October 13th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
The hair is partly thanks to the D who visits this blog recommending gouache for fixing mistakes. I also found that white ink is good for making hair.
October 13th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I love the almost cloud-like fragility of the whole picture. There are so many aspects to the character that are conflicting when focussed upon individually and yet seem seamless when regarding him as a whole.
The white skin makes him look ancient and youthful at the same time. His face and hands are distinctly feminine and together with the blue shades there is a definite sense of androgyny. Ironically, the baby-blue (which initially has a feminine feel to it) is traditionally more masculine, which in turn makes one think of a child.
The background, which is less defined, brings to mind a feeling of age, or someplace frozen. It looks like the sun is peeking out from behind a ridge and the white marks in the sky could be rain, stars, meteors?
I keep wondering whether it’s a child’s dream or that of an old person. Anyway, these are just some of the things that came to mind. Definitely an intriguing character.
October 13th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Nice to hear from you! Have you done any more writing lately? I remember your intriguing imagery.
D in the original Japanese novels spends most of his time stoically hacking through the undead and various other monsters, but every now and then the author has him do something like “gaze into the distance with the air of a young poet”. As a dhampire, half vampire, half human, he is indeed both old and youthful, so I’m glad if that impression came across.
I think it must be a white, frozen place. I didn’t manage to get the white marks in the sky in the final version — they were the accidental result of quick colouring, and I couldn’t get them tidied in a way that looked ok. So perhaps D is in a snow dome, and it was shaken up while I was painting, but by the time I finished the snow had settled.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
That’s a really interesting prospect: a half-vampire trapped in a snow dome. I wonder what he’d do with himself…
October 14th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Destroy the snow dome, probably — that might be why he’s drawing his sword
October 14th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I hope he manages, maybe the dome will break his sword instead. Imagine being a vampire hunter and being scrutinised by the eye of some divine captor.
October 15th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Hmm, if his sword breaks, I guess he’ll have to make a dangerous journey to the castle in the centre of the snow dome and kill the boss vampire there, which will destroy the magic of the dome… but he’s the protagonist, so in addition to the eye of the captor, the benevolent plot gods are looking out for him.