Draw this again challenge: Cen Dragoon

Jan02
by on January 2, 2020 at 00:43
Posted In: Blog

Last year i did one of these “Draw it again” challeneges, re-drawing an old character from an old comic. But this time i wanted to go further back, to my teens, to before i had any formal artistic education. So i unpacked all of my old sketchbooks and folders with old drawings, that go back to when i was about 12. I did a thread on twitter narrating the journey. Then i chose a few of them for a poll, and a few of them got very similar votes so i ended up doing this one.

This is the first character i ever played on a roleplaying campaign, (Dungeons & Dragons), and this is her first drawing. I later re-used her for a comic based on D&D along other characters i had played, and she got tons of redesigns in about a decade. So this will be like the 5th or so xD. I have to say this one has been a challenge. My previous Re-draw was of a character i did when i already had artistic training, so her design was really Ok and i only had to make it cooler. But this one was done before i knew anything of art, and it was a mess. It has many of the defects of newbie drawings. Lot’s of unnecesary items congesting the design, unefficient equipment to the point of breaking suspension of disbelief, and particularly bad colors. This last part has been quite difficult to handle. I had to try to find a balance between fixing the design and not straying so much that it wouldn’t even look similar, and i’m not too sure i’ve managed it. The red stripes still fuck me up a little, but i didn’t want to use more time on this.

In any case, there’s a nude variant for patreon supporters, so support me for mature content and other stuff.

El año pasado hice uno de esos desafios de Dibujalo otra vez, y redibujé un antiguo personaje de un antiguo comic. Pero esta vez quise ir más atrás, a mi adolescencia, antes de tener ningún estudio formal de arte. Así que he revisado mis antiguos libros de bocetos y carpetas, que se extienden hasta los doce años. Hice un hilo en twitter narrando el viaje. Escogí algunos para encuesta, y quedaron bastante similar en votos, así que escogí uno sin más.

Este es el primer personaje que jugué en una campaña de rol (Dragones y mazmorras), y este es su primer dibujo. La re-use más tarde en un comic basado en D&D junto a otros personajes que había jugado, y tuvo varios rediseños con el tiempo. Así que este será el quinto o así xD. He de decir que ha sido un desafío. Mi re-dibujo previo fue un personaje que hice cuando ya tenía conocimientos artisticos, así que estaba decente y solo tenía que hacerlo más chulo.  Pero este fue hecho antes de saber nada de arte, y era un desastre. Tiene los típicos defectos de dibujante novato. Muchos elementos innecesarios congestionando el diseño, equipo ineficaz que rompe suspensión de incredulidad, y particularmente malos colores. Esta última parte ha sido difícil de manejar. He intentado encontrar un equilibrio entre arreglarlo y tratar de no alejarme tanto que ni se parezcan, y no estoy seguro de haberlo conseguido. Las bandas rojas aun me chirrian, pero no tenía tiempo para más.

En cualquier caso, hay una variante desnuda en mi patreon.

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Old drawings journey

Dec30
by on December 30, 2019 at 23:04
Posted In: Blog
I did a twitter thread with a journey through my old drawings, going further and further into old times till my childhood stuff. Take a look if you want to cringe
https://twitter.com/kukuruyo/status/1211718263320825862
I also did another thread with my conclusions (i reached twitter’s limit of tweets) https://twitter.com/kukuruyo/status/1211728258443751424
And finally a poll to vote which drawing of them i’ll re-draw
 https://twitter.com/kukuruyo/status/1211739957628473346
Also, as for the conclusions, i’ll write them here to extend myself a little more.
I’ve to do some re-evaluation. My idea was just to find an old drawing to do a re-draw, but revisiting my life’s artistic process i think i’ve lost something along the way. I draw better for sure, i’ve learned a lot, but i feel some of my changes haven’t been for the better. Looking at my drawings after a certain point, when they begin to be fleshed out drawings, i notice they have a different style and i’m not sure i prefer the one i have now. They’re “better” now but less stylish, as if i had less freedom than i had in the past, as if my hand back there wasn’t hold by anything but now i’m more constrained by how i “should” draw for it to be correct.

Also in a certain age range, they become very dynamic, the action looks fast and cool even if there’s a lack in quality in the lines or the ink. Action scenes i did 15 years ago feel cooler than the ones i do today. I’ve read some 15 old comics today that had better fights than what i’ve been doing in MGoT recently. My drawings were more dynamic in the past than now.

And looking at the timeframe, i think i can deduce some answers. At that time i focused full on comic and didn’t do color illustrations or commissions. 10 years ago is when i more or less began with digital color and opened commissions.
I’ve always thought color handicaps manga cause it makes it look less dynamic and i think i’ve ironically come to prove that point myself without trying. In my efforts to get better at color i seem to have become a little more static, more focused on drawing for the coloring, so doing the color becomes easier and look better. It’s different to draw for color than black and white, and i’m much more suited for black and white, but still have to work in color.

A good example is this drawing. It’s one of my favourite drawings of this year, but only works in black and white. I tried to color it and ended up scraping it cause it didn’t look good. The drawing was conceived for black and white only, and adapting it to color required extra work.

Also i’ve always been opposite to the idea that “realism” makes a drawing better but it seems even myself i’ve slowly tilted a little towards more realistic manga, while my older drawings were pure “rule of cool” and fuck it if it’s not real. This particularly irks me cause as it seems even when i’ve always defended Cool before Real i’ve still be influenced enough that it has affected my drawings in exactly the way i’ve always said it does. I guess in a way it has helped me prove my point, but i would have prefered not being the guinea pig of the experiment.
Then there’s the commissions. Most commissions are basically just characters posing. It seems after a while doing commissions i’ve slowly focused on learning to do good pose/pinup drawings and draw for coloring them, and that has made my drawings more static.
Then there’s also the simple concept of lack of time. At the time i didn’t work doing comics, i simply did designs and drawings to learn or for fun, while i was studing a career or a master or working at a normal job. There’s a lot of difference between designing something with lots of time, and applying that design to a comic. Then it becomes the same character drawn in 6+ panels per page, several pages a week + all of the other work you have to do. So you end up simplifying designs. It’s very noticeable in the hair; old drawing had more complex hair than my newest characters. Even the drawings at the earlier stages of Guild adventure were more detailed and complex than now. There were more complex perspectives, backgrounds had a lot of stuff. Now if i can avoid drawing a background i do it.
And there’s really not much solution to that if you don’t have time.
So i’ll have to think what i’m going to do. I have been already thinking for some time i’ve to cut some of the things that i do, cause i just don’t have time. I do at least 4 comic series + pinups + commissions + patreon + i draw shit whenever some pop culture goes viral, etc. I have already cut out a couple of comics i don’t do anymore, but it’s not enough, i find myself each time with more drawings i would like to do and no time to do them, or to do them properly.

If i want to improve my quality, learning to draw better is not gonna cut it (especially when i don’t have time to practice). Something has to go. And idk what it will be. Or i have to streamline some of my work in some way, idk. I have been thinking for a while on changing my coloring style a little to something more full manga, (right now is kind of an amerimanga thing) so i can simplify the coloring process.

And as much as it pains me, most probably the Monster girls on Space tour comic has to go. It fucks me up cause that is a project i really want to do. I already explained it in a video but for different reasons i’ve never been able to develop a personal project from conception to end with full control of it. I’ve always know i can do a better story and overal comic than my webcomics and this was my time to do it. I’ve already 22 pages done, and they’re coming along well. I like the story as a whole. But the project is almost 70 pages long, and it has taken me a year to do 22. At this rate it’ll take at least 2 more years to finish, not counting up i have less time than before. And in that time it would drain me of days of work. By all logic if something has to go, it’s that comic.

I’m still not gona axe it. I still have doubts about what i’m gonna do. Some stuff in my personal life may give me some more time, maybe. Maybe i can learn to do some of the stuff faster. Maybe i’ll find a way to spend some weeks full on it and finish it. I’ll say that for now it’s on hiatus and i’ll see in the future if i give up and publish what it’s done.

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Cara Dune

Dec25
by on December 25, 2019 at 00:45
Posted In: Blog

Another of the characters of the Mandalorian (my first one was the Mandalorian “himself”), the shocktrooper Cara Dune. And also nude variant for my patreon supporters. Check my commission rates and support my patreon for mature content

Otro de los personajes del Mandalorian (el primero que hice fue “el” Mandalorian mismo), la shocktrooper Cara dune. Y versión desnuda en patreon.

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