Pokemon: Clefable

Back in April, I tried to sell some prints of my Pokemon artwork at PAX East, some of which I had uploaded to the blog, others I had not.  One print I had involved two Pokemon from the original games which enjoy competitive popularity today: Clefable and Dragonite.  To be honest, I drew the Clefable as part of a different image and had planned Dragonite as an additional element for that image.  For now, I want to talk a bit about the Clefable I drew.

Copic Coloring & Sakura Miyazaki Recolor Project

At some point last year, I took an interest in Copic markers, a set of markers meant to be used to shade drawings. Usually, if you color a picture, while markers produce vibrant colors, the same bold color makes it difficult to shade or blend the markers if you have so few. Luckily, Copic sells 358 different colors of markers, which may be an overwhelming selection until you learn about the codes they grant each color. Every Copic marker has an alphanumeric code which tells you the appropriate way to use it if you shade, usually in the form of “R24” or “BG13” or something like that. The letters correspond to the color family of the marker (for example: “R” for red, “B” for blue, “BG” for blue-green / cyan / teal, “E” for earth colors), the first number identifies a brightness / shade / “purity” within that color family, and the last digit tells how light or dark the color is (0 is the lightest, 9 is the darkest). It reminds me of the hue, saturation, and luminosity values when you pick colors on a computer, except it can now be applied to ink. Apparently, you can shade with these markers by layering several colors of the same “hue” and “saturation” but different “luminosities”. It was an intriguing concept (which I only discovered last year), and I was curious about these markers.

Unfortunately, Copic markers are quite expensive. If a concrete arts & crafts store sells them, individual Sketch markers are about $8 each. Packs of three, six, or twelve sorted for their shading purposes are obviously more and not much of a discount (if any), and they are sometimes gated off from the rest of the merchandise. Since I arguably spend more time making art through the computer rather than physical prints (which I should do), I was unsure how often I would use these markers and which ones. Copic drawing in real life may not work so well, so I took a different approach to testing these markers.

I searched online for a complete color palette of Copic colors I could load into Photoshop. Copic provides the palette themselves, and the colors from that look just like the colors displayed on the website. However, after testing them out their palette, I thought the colors I got from it were too light and faded. Though I have not gathered many Copic markers, I did receive a few for Christmas, and compared to what I was seeing on the screen, the real deal seems much darker and more vibrant. Thus, I kept searching online for substitute palettes, preferably one made by the real markers.

Eventually, I found this chart from a DeviantArt account called Jad-Ardat, where the uploader organized every single marker into a graph and colored each square with the appropriate color. They put a lot of work into this, and I am grateful they did, because these shades looked much closer to what I was seeing from the markers I had used. I decided (once I blended the inside of each square because it was still noisy in most of them) to use this palette and test it on my drawings going forward this year.

Final Design Possibilites: near-white-blue (porcelain) vs pale blue (frost)

For one of my first drawings with these Copic colors, I decided to test them on my little moon mage, Sakura Miyazaki, but I also tested these colors because I have been considering a redesign for Sakura’s palette before I start working on my “Lucids” stories. Eventually, I ended with the images below as my finalists, and I would love some feedback on which version you prefer. Before that, though, an explanation for why I would recolor one of my classic characters.

Twitter Page and Logo

Before I go into the new image I want to show, I want to let you know right now, I have a Twitter account now: @RyuKageChroma.  For a long time, I did not sign up for Twitter because I was not fond of the tight limits on what you can type per post.  However, I decided it would be a quick way to share some of my thoughts on games or events happening, as well as one more outlet to share my artwork with a wider audience, both originals and fan art.  I will be posting there and here, as well as my personal Facebook page whenever I can motivate myself to do so, and I plan to use them more frequently than I have been.  Hopefully, I can keep that promise this time.  Ha ha.

Click here to see my Twitter account: @RyuKageChroma

In the meantime, let me share a revamp of my old logo, the Mark of the Red Dragon.

Team Chroma Logo

PAX East is fast approaching, and I will be attending Friday, April 22 and Saturday, April 23.  Therefore, I should get cracking on whatever new projects I want to tackle within the next week.  I have also decided to upload multiple posts within the next week.  I would like to show at least two posts, but if I can do three, that would be fantastic.  I do have other drawings I want to make, though, so we will see what happens from here.

Today, I am showing a logo I made a month or so before Pokemon X and Y were released (I guess September 2013).  I drew this with the intention of forming some kind of guild to discuss and explore the game, an aspiration which did not pan out.  Still, at least I made a cool logo for the group: "Team Chroma".

In every Pokemon game, there is a group which acts as the antagonists of the game known as "Team [Insert Word Here]" - "Rocket" in Kanto and Johto, "Galactic" in Sinnoh, "Plasma" in Unova, "Flare" in Kalos, and both "Magma" and "Aqua" in Hoenn.  They show up throughout the game nudging the plot forward through underhanded actions.  "Team Chroma" started as an idea for one of those, but with a bit of a twist.  Team Chroma would antagonize the player, but their true goal would be to stop a more evil group known as Team Gris (the French word for "gray") from freezing their country.

Sakura Miyazaki: Door Sign

Today, I have some images I drew in March last year of Sakura Miyazaki.  Who is Sakura Miyazaki?  Well, click here for a full refresher (two different links are here, leading to the same character), but in short, Sakura is one of my main heroes for a personal project I call Lucids.

In this concept, an alternate reality exists parallel to the material worlds, a dimension constructed from the subconscious thoughts and ideas of the sentient.  This bizarre reality is known as the "Dream Dimension", and it rejuvenates the minds of those who fall asleep.  Many people's minds and hearts drift to the Dream Dimension while asleep, but those who realize it happens are known as "Lucids".  Thanks to their awareness of the Dream Dimension, they can tap into the Dream Dimension (which have an atmosphere basically made of hammerspace) and essentially gain superpowers.  A Lucid chooses what to do with these powers, and unfortunately, many will use such power to attack the minds of others.  Luckily, should these "Dream Pirates" strike, other Lucids will rise to defend the unaware.  These virtuous Lucids have formed a patrol force known as the "Nites".

Sakura Miyazaki is one such Nite.  She is kind of a mage who specializes mostly in force magic, taking on the occasional alias "Space Girl".  She can conjure white or black "moons", round discs which generate intense force.  Fullmoon, the white discs, pull objects toward them, while the black Newmoons repel objects.  Sakura mainly uses these moons to redirect her opponent's attacks, but since the moons generate their own forces, she can also use them to augment her usually feeble physical attacks.  She can even cast the moons for propulsion: using Newmoons to jump high into the air or over long distances, or casting Fullmoons to pull herself toward a much heavier object she wants to reach.

With this theme of pushing and pulling in mind, I decided to make something creative and odd: an open-and-closed sign.

Pokemon: Greninja Gaiden

Back in December 2014, I came close to a position working on art assets for an educational online project.  However, while they liked the sketches I drew for them, the job required assets made as vector graphics, and at the time, I had no experience working with vector graphics.  They had to turn me down, and in retaliation (kind of), I did the only thing which made sense: I started to learn Adobe Illustrator.

To be honest, I am still not too well-versed in Illustrator and have not used it much since then.  Aside from the 30-day trial provided (which apparently renews each year, luckily), it would cost about $20/month to use Illustrator.  I am not completely sure if I would use Illustrator enough to warrant that (although lately, I am drifting toward “yes”), so for vector-based needs, I have instead turned to a program called Inkscape.  It is free vector graphic software, and though it is not quite as intuitive as Illustrator nor has as many line style options, it gets the job done.

This time, I wanted to show one of the images I created during my trial of Illustrator, from December 2014 to January 2015.  Although this version is saved as a PNG file, I created everything in this image in Adobe Illustrator.  Behold the froggy glory of Greninja!

Pokemon: Mewtwo in the Unknown Dungeon

ANNOUNCEMENT!
Before I discuss this picture, I would like to announce here I will be filming a live stream on my Twitch channel: RyuKageChroma!  This Sunday, February 21st, I will be recording the Unknown Dungeon in Pokemon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition, an optional dungeon you can only access after clearing the game's main story.  Other than possible future streams (not likely) where I attempt to obtain every Pokemon I can with a single copy of the game (and a minigame which is nigh-impossible to see), the Unknown Dungeon is the last thing I have to show in Pokemon Yellow.  I will attempt to capture the subject of today's drawing without utilizing the Master Ball, which will probably take a while and many attempts.  This is happening this coming Sunday at 7pm (Eastern Time).  I hope to see you there.

Click here to see my Twitch channel: RyuKageChroma, which also features various highlights from some of my past streams.

Over the past year, I started streaming gameplay footage on Twitch occasionally, most often for Pokemon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition.  Originally, I was doing this to have a stockpile of footage from this version of the game in case I ever recorded footage for a video playthrough of the original Red and Blue games.  Over time, though, it became something I could anticipate doing during the week.  I was involved with the Drama Club in both high school and college, but this is the closest outlet I have to that kind of performance.  After I finish Pokemon Yellow, I have a few other ideas for streaming, some other games I want to play, and maybe some guest commentators.  If you decide to watch, then I hope you like what you hear.

As for Pokemon Yellow, by now, I have played through all of the main story of the game and caught 70 different species of Pokemon along the way.  I have even visited two of the game’s optional dungeons and captured the ice and thunder birds residing in them (as well as their less-impressive fiery cousin who roosts slightly off the beaten path in the final required dungeon).  However, there is one optional dungeon I have yet to explore, because I could not enter this one until after I beat the main story: the Unknown Dungeon (a.k.a. “Cerulean Cave”).  This cave is filled with narrow passages and the highest-level wild Pokemon you can find in the game, including some which are usually difficult to find otherwise.  Most importantly, on a small island residing in the deepest pit of the Unknown Dungeon, an unspeakably-powerful Pokemon waits to challenge any fool who dares to venture so deep into its lair.

They call this creature “Mewtwo”.

Ryu-Kage: A Return from the Shadows

 

"How's it going, folks?  This is Ryu-Kage!"

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted anything here.  What happened?  Well, how can I put this?

I "fell asleep" for a year. Not literally, of course, but that is basically how it felt.
 
Without going into too much detail, at some point since I last posted on the blog, I became rather depressed overall about my life as it is and where it would go.  However, I did have occasional glimmers of hope by briefly reconnecting with a few old friends from college, which started to change one of the reasons I was feeling so bummed.  I would like to reconnect with them some more, and since I made many of my friends through my favorite video game series - Pokemon, this year (the 20th anniversary of Pokemon) would be an excellent opportunity to reconnect.

I did still draw during the past year, but I was not sure if many of the pictures I made were good enough to show (oh hi, confidence problems), and even if I did make something worthwhile, I just could not bring myself to upload it here for some reason. Thus, many of my pictures have basically been in limbo.

Well, I cannot say I am completely past the negativity, but I am sick of moping so much, and I want to shine through the darkness again.  After the jump, I have a few things I would like to do in the near future.