Moonphase: Topsfield Fair Entry 2021

Welcome to my fourth week of posting about my old Topsfield Fair entries. This time, I’m showing off my entry from 2021. If you have been keeping up, you may have noticed I skipped a year. I would’ve liked to submit a new image to the 2020 Topsfield Fair, but we… didn’t have the fair that year. I think we all understand WHY there was no fair in 2020, don’t we? (gives White House the stink eye)

(sigh) …Anyway, instead of making a piece of digital art in 2021, I decided to try my hand at a hand-drawn piece. My folks often comment my hand-drawn work comes out better (maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, I’m my own worst critic), so I figured I would see how far a hand-drawn picture would go. And, of course, I would once again rely on my muse – Sakura Miyazaki – to help me through this.

Specifically, I wanted to illustrate Sakura’s self-made superpower: Moonphase. I’ve done a couple of pieces long ago about this ability, but to sum it up, she can project either an attractive force she calls “Fullmoon” or a repulsive force called “Newmoon”. Fullmoon manifests as a cyan-white disc which pulls objects toward her, while Newmoon conjures a reddish-black disc to push objects away. These discs are the centers of their respective forces and have the strongest effects right near them, though their influence could extend as far as Sakura can see. She could use this ability to pick up objects or redirect enemy attacks and later launch them back at opponents (as long as she doesn’t hurt herself with those captured attacks).

Lucids Pop Comic Cover: Topsfield Fair Entry 2019

Remember: You can also check out my website to check out full walls of my artwork.

And occasionally, I may post on Twitter when I am doing something, @RyuKageChroma.

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For my third entry into the Topsfield Fair Fine Arts display, I decided to go for a different style of digital art. I wanted to show off several of my original Lucids characters, and I was at the time fascinated by a Playstation 4 game I had never played: Persona 5.

For those unfamiliar with Persona 5, while the game does use typical anime-style art, there’s a recurring motif throughout the game of 2D imagery in black-and-white, often shown on a single-color background (usually red). It’s a striking style, and I thought combining such dark shadows with bright simple colors would make a striking image.

At the front (and furthest left), we have my mascot: Sakura Miyazaki, also known as “Crescendo” when acting as a Lucid. And we can see her matching her skirt color to her dress because, in my quest to make her look good but not too busy in terms of color, I decided giving her either a red skirt or a teal skirt would be best for the design, and I wanted red (a rebel’s color) to be the dominant color in her design. I also had her readying her Newmoon power as the black disc in her left hand.

Meanwhile, behind Sakura (but further ahead), we have several of her Lucid friends and allies popping out. Next to her is Ken Thunder, leading the charge with a sword in one hand and lightning in the other. While Ken considers himself a hero, he does enjoy being able to fight Dream Pirates. The other three characters are ones I mentioned on this blog in past posts years ago, but I’ve updated their designs in some ways. From closest to the front to furthest in the back, we have “The Nocturne”, Mike Anacle (maybe change that to “Anakell”?), and Wendy Krane. In whatever stories I run through my head, Sakura and Ken are the stars, while these three are more supporting characters.

One thing to note: the colors I show here may not be the colors I use for their designs now. I just wanted to emphasize a color scheme of simple, distant colors in this image.

Below them all, we have an audience cheering on these “Stars”. While “Lucid” is the catch-all term I use for these psychic superheroes, I have been debating for years on what to call the good guys. “Dream Guardians” is a bit of a mouthful, “Dream Police” sounds unintentionally sinister (especially in the past few years), and “Knights” could be a little confusing when some of these characters don’t fit the image of knights, even if it was supposed to be a play on “night”. For now, I’m settling on the term “Stars” for Lucids who protect the Dream Dimension and those who enter it. “Stars” also kind of helps for the crowd at the bottom of the image cheering these Lucids on – an audience, if you will.

Avatar VS Darkside: Topsfield Fair Entry 2017

I have been submitting my artwork to the Topsfield Fair for the last five years it has run, hoping I could get more eyes on my artwork. Since I haven’t regularly made money off my artwork yet, I enter as an Amateur in the fair’s contest, rather than as a Professional. I wanted to show off and discuss my entries sooner, but I kept delaying it until now. So, as I mentioned last week, for the next few weeks, I will be providing quick write-ups about these pictures.

The first year I entered the Topsfield Fair’s Art Contest was 2017, where I entered this image of my OC Sakura Miyazaki and… herself two more times. Material World Sakura (center) is feeling horribly low, but her inner positivity and inspiration manifest as her Lucid Avatar (left). While she is looking toward the bright side, however, Sakura is still being buried under a manifestation of her inner negativity, her personal Darkside with ice powers (right).

Whenever a Lucid awakens to their abilities in the Dream Dimension, they unwittingly create a Darkside, a personal Nightmare created primarily from their denial, secrets, guilt, and other fun negative qualities. A Lucid’s Darkside may arise within their mind to destroy them during especially low points of their lives, and they often threaten to destroy their host through “self” sabotage, which may manifest in the Material World.

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.

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.

Lucids: Group Shot

A while back, I drew a group shot of some of the main characters from my idea Lucids, but I never uploaded it here because I did not like how it came out.  I drew some of the characters oddly, I took some shortcuts making it (like copying one character from another drawing I made), and I even made a rather ugly logo and background for that drawing.

Originally, this drawing started as a way to relax, but it grew into something far more ambitious: a second attempt at that group shot picture, though not in the same way and not with the same lineup.

Here we see four Lucids.  From left to right: Mike Anacle, Wendy Krane, Sakura Miyazaki, and Ken "Thunder".  Not exactly the most exciting poses, but they just the job done.  You may also notice some changes among each one, too.

Lucids: Rin, "Thor's Valkyrie"

"Tamaki, the Shadow Soldier" is one of my favorite pictures I have uploaded here.  She arose from a strange combination of a concept for formerly useless characters from Lucids, design elements from various role-playing video games I like, and an odd idea for her Lucid powers which arose from trying to make a background for her.  I would like to do more with Tamaki in the future.

I mentioned back then Tamaki had sisters, and they would mostly be villains.  In an attempt to follow up on Tamaki, I decided to draw the leader of this group of sisters: Rin.

Lucids: Ken and Sakura, Action!

NOTICE: I will probably focus on Pokemon fan art this month.  On Facebook, many people celebrate December by replacing their profile picture with an image of a Pokemon, suitably called "Pokemon Profile Picture Month".  I have no idea why they do this in December of all months; I would think February (when the original games were released in Japan) or September (when they were first released elsewhere) would be more suitable choices.  If you know the reason, leave a comment below to tell me.  While you are at it, feel free to leave comments below all of my pictures; I would like some feedback.

With that out of the way, I wanted to draw something else, possibly an original piece, before I go on a Pokemon drawing binge.  Therefore, I whipped up a drawing of my two leading Lucids, Sakura Miyazaki and Ken Thunder.  Here is the main drawing with no added effects.

I have some drawings of these two characters on here already, but I usually pose them in either awkward or boring positions.  My main goal was to show them in different poses than usual.

Lucids / Monsters: Demonox

So far, when it comes to Lucids, I have mainly talked about the Lucids themselves: people from the material world who have synchronized with the Dream Dimension, a reality born of fantasy.  These people can use their awareness of the Dream Dimension to create their own personal mental realm and (extremely likely case) gain superpowers.  In addition to creating Dream Worlds, people can also subconsciously create other beings to live in those worlds.  These creatures start off as Thoughts, imaginary creatures.  However, when a Thought is either neglected for too long or exposed to a lot of negative emotion, they can easily transform into the many monsters that exist in the Dream Dimension: Nightmares.

I ought to draw more concept art of potential Nightmares, so this week, I drew a breed known as "Demonox".

Lucids: "Nocturne"

This was supposed to be up here by Halloween.  Unfortunately, I have been sinking a lot of my free time into Pokemon X and Y.  I have beaten the main story, but now I am trying to raise Pokemon to battle against other people.  Currently, I am trying to raise a Lucario, but there are so many others I want to raise.  So many Pokemon, so many drawings, and so little time.

Well, I did finally put this one together.  I have shown a few different Lucids on here before.  Sakura Miyazaki tends to grab a lot of the spotlight, but she is joined by her friends Ken "Thunder" and Wendy Krane.  This time, I would like to introduce another character from the first Lucids picture I uploaded here but never really detailed.  Here he is: "The Nocturne".

Lucids: Sakura's Newmoon

I was on vacation last week, so I could not really update this blog.  However, I did make a small update to a much earlier post, making some minor edits to one of my drawings of Sakura.  It is at the bottom of the entry linked here if you want a look.

Speaking of Sakura, I actually did want to upload a picture of her before I left, but it was not finished.  I have been trying to finish up the picture since I came back, and I think it is at a passable point.

Tamaki, the Shadow Soldier

I have held a set of four characters for the world of Lucids in the back of my mind for a long time but have not really developed at all or thought to do anything with them.  I just did not devote much thought to them besides that they would be based on one of four powers: fire, water, lightning, and darkness.  Then, I began to rekindle my interest in the Fire Emblem series and started thinking that I could base their designs somewhat off their original inspiration (which was, by the way, the different evolutions of the Pokemon Eevee) and combine that with the fantasy-world designs of Fire Emblem units.

I decided to work on the shadow girl first.  The fire and water characters are probably not going to be super important, and the lightning one would be the leader, and I wanted to save her for when I start drawing villains for this series.  The shadow girl, however, might be a bit more reluctant than her sisters, and there may be redemption for her yet.

Meet Tamaki, codenamed "The Shadow Soldier".

Lucids: Ken & Sakura Awake

The week of the Fourth of July was pretty crazy.  Between having like five days at my current job in a row at different times (including a morning shift, bleck!) and the parties, I just could not motivate myself to update last week.  Sorry about that.  Hopefully, I can return to the weekly flow I had going on.

Anyway, I have a little drawing featuring two of my Lucids.  ...except they are not acting as Lucids right now.

Lucids: Wendy Krane

I may have mentioned last week that I was not sure if I could post this week.  Once again, sorry for the delay.  I have actually been drawing, but one picture I made last week was meant to be auctioned off for my high school's Drama Club.  I may upload that here next week or sometime in the future, but I figured it might be a little more special if it is not online yet.  Then again, that drawing only went for $12, while the Pokemon comic I drew sold for $50.  (I was kind of floored when that happened.)

In the meantime, I can upload one of my older drawings and talk about that for a little bit.  So, this week, I want to introduce you to another character from the Lucids world I keep mentioning: Wendy Krane.

Concept Comic: Fullmoon

Before I get into this week's picture, I just want to apologize for not posting anything last week.  I started a bit late on the picture I was going to show off, and it turned out to be a bit more ambitious than I thought it was going to be.  I do tend to be easily distracted sometimes, but I do want to return to that picture-a-week routine.

So, what was so big that I could not post last week?  Well, I enjoyed drawing that Pokemon comic a few weeks ago, so I thought I would try another comic.

Lucids: Subcon Guild Hall

I do like Pokemon quite a bit, but I really should be making and showing off more of my own ideas as drawings.  This week, I decided to make this picture for two reasons: 1.) to draw more having to do with my Lucids idea, and 2.) to set up some ideas for future projects.  I figured a good way to accomplish this was by drawing a place where many Lucids could meet.

PAX East + Lucids: Ken "Thunder"

Before I talk about this week's picture, I just want to say that I will be attending PAX East this weekend.  PAX East is a game convention hosted by the crew behind the popular web comic Penny Arcade, featuring a showroom of upcoming and recently-released video games, various presentations from people related to games (developers, players, archivers, even Internet personalities like the Runaway Guys), and various rooms where people can play video games and talk about them.  I am pretty stoked about this.  (If only I could use my Keldeo against the PAX Pokemon League...)  Meet me up there Friday or Sunday if you want to hang out.

Now with that out of the way, by now I have posted and talked a bit about Sakura Miyazaki, one of the main characters of this "Lucids" series.  I have yet to show off some of the other characters I have in mind, though, so this week, I want to give you a proper introduction to the male lead of the series: Ken "Thunder".

Sakura Redrawn

Remember my "Lucids" concept?  I've been thinking about it, and I want to nail the look of those characters down.  So, lately, I have been trying to draw them a little more frequently.  Perhaps some day soon I can utilize them in comic form or animated form or something.  But before that can happen, I want to be sure that these guys will look the way I want them to look.

To that end, allow me to reintroduce Sakura Miyazaki, the female lead of this "series", in a drawing I made a few months ago.  How did this one turn out?

Lucid: Sakura Miyazaki

Sakura Miyazaki is a Lucid, a person that can control what happens in the Dream Dimension.  She is one of the main characters for the stories about them, although she was originally being used as a figurehead for a cult led by Voy.  Thanks to the interference of Ken Thunder, however, Sakura was able to foil Voy's scheme (for now) and join the Dream Police.  Now she hopes that she can experience everything the Dream Dimension has to offer.

Sakura is generally a sweet girl who is willing to help whoever needs it.  However, she can be suspicious of strange people she meets at first.  Luckily, she can vaguely judge a person's personality easily and warm up to good-natured people rather quickly.  The one thing she cannot stand above all else is being betrayed or lied to.  Outside of that, she gets along decently with most people, although she sticks with Ken on most missions.

This drawing was drawn with regular pencil and paper first and colored in Photoshop.  Sakura's body is supposed to be based a bit off of some concept art I found of Princess Zelda for Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.  Seeing as she's supposed to be a main character and only about 16, she's supposed to appear cute and approachable.  Originally, I thought of making her costume mainly blue, but I decided to dress her in red and pink to make her more true to her name ("sakura" is Japanese for "cherry blossom", which is pink, and its fruit is red).  Her hair was also originally black, but I noticed one cartoon with characters with black hair that was illuminated a bluish-gray.  I decided to try out the dark blue hair on Sakura.

Lucids

This picture depicts several characters from a cartoon idea I've had for a while. The premise is that there is a world that parallels our own, constructed of the thoughts and ideas that people had. Anybody can visit this world, the Dream Dimension, when they are asleep. However, there are people who have gained awareness when they are dreaming, and because of this awareness, they are capable of using the power of the Dream Dimension to grant themselves super powers. These people are known as "Lucids".

The characters depicted on here are some of the more prominent characters of the series.

Spiky Headed Boy = Ken Thunder: Experienced Hero
Dark-Haired Girl = Sakura Miyazaki: Newly-Reawakened Lucid
Bald Boy = Mike Anacle: Rookie Lucid
Girl with Fans = Wendy Krane: Proud Rival of Ken
Man in Glasses = Principal Drake: Runs Ken's Lucid academy
Skullhead = "Nocturne": Vengeful Nemesis of Ken
Hooded Man = Voi: Mysterious "Father"

I will add files on them as I make them.