Struggling with the White Queen

I've been working on a gift illustration for a while now. Who ever knew it would take three tries to get a satisfactory result? The images above are the first two tries.

These illustrations I did didn't really come out the way I wanted due to various reasons, like stickers not being ink-resistant, too dark colours, just being plain unable to draw what I wanted... I did try fixing my mistakes but in the end I didn't like these two, and I don't want to give away works I'm not happy with. It's against my policy, because I'd feel so cheap.

 This is the very first illustration I ever did of the White Queen, from last summer. Since the other ones didn't work out, I took up this for hints and decided to give it one more try. The third and final illustration is based upon this little painting's design of the Queen.

Watercolours didn't work for the other two, and I wanted to try something else. I ended up on markers - on the left is the inked lineart and on the right what I've coloured so far. I scanned the lines and printed on another paper so that I could start over in case I make a mess again. So far so good, I think. I usually start with the skin first when I colour with markers because it's the best part.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for a good result at last, shall we?

Scared someone

I had completely forgotten about this drawing that I made sometime in November, maybe. I'll finish it someday once I figure out what to put beside the black shadowy thing. I somehow lost interest towards the end and buried it under various other unfinished drawings. ^^;

She's a comic character from me and my friend's pet project. I don't want to reveal much yet, but she's a nerdy girl who's deadly afraid of vampires for some reason. Then a real vampire enters her everyday life... And hilarity ensues. Her name is Sipsetti. Yes it's a real, old-fashioned Finnish name, stop laughing. Since it has somewhat become my nickname these days I decided to give the name to her. I hope I'll be done with this Thesis thing once and for all so I can continue with the comic~

Cut & paste Neptune

Let's see, Copic White, silver watercolour, watercolour ink, Copic markers, pastel pencils, ink and stamps, rose scrapbooking paper, pearlescent paper.. All those things were necessary to create this little postcard design. I simply wanted to draw a pretty picture of Sailor Neptune/Michiru and somehow it went downhill from there. ^^; Pose is referenced from a mail order catalogue I have.

The process in a nutshell:
Neptune herself was drawn on a different piece of paper, coloured with Copics and cut off using a crafting knife after I was finished with her. Since I don't have any blue-green Copics I simply made her hair apple green and applied more ocean-like tones by colouring over some places with electric blue and ocean green pastel pencils and then scrubbing them with a tissue. Hint! Pastel pencils are great for adding extra glow to marker works. Try scratching some colour off the tip of a pencil using scissors or simply drawing light strokes with the pencil and then scrubbing it smooth with a tissue.

I did splatters with ink and watercolour on both Neptune's paper and the bg paper, then let it dry and glued the roses on the edges, soon followed by gluing Neptune in the middle. For a finishing touch I made the text with stamps (because I think stamp-made text looks neat in postcards). It was a lot more work than I had planned but I really like the outcome and damn, this was great fun to do. I just planned everything as I went.

I really want to do more postcard designs this way! Mm, maybe I should do Haruka next so I can pair them up~ -already preparing for summer conventions-

Sailor Moon + markers

Made this A5-sized marker illustration today while listening to Ayumi Hamasaki's Love songs album. I ordered it a few days before Christmas, and it arrived today. Inspiration come my way! <3 The packaging, booklet and songs are all so beautiful. Must be my favourite Ayu album since (miss)understood and Secret. I've loved all her work so far, but this feels so nostalgic and familiar.

Anyway, since the album is such a prize and booklet pictures very pretty, I drew Sailor Moon in front of a mirror just like Ayu in one of the pictures. The pose went haywire but I'm happy with the colouring! I've had problems with Copics since forever but I think we've achieved some sort of mutual understanding now. Also! Roses cut from scrapbook paper. -loves-

Attention: these other two are not quite work-safe. I have been reading Sky Doll lately and wanted to draw Neo-Queen Serenity in a dress similar to Agape's. Her breasts look like balloons, it's quite freaky... I'm more a fan of small breasts if I'm completely honest. Also, the other one is obviously porn work of Seiya (Sailor Star Fighter) and Sailor Moon, a pairing I like very much. Um. It was a marker practice, honest. Kinda. Sorta. An excuse to draw as much bare skin as possible? XD Sigh, no one's going believe me anyway, so why bother? I just love Sailor Moon's blushing face, she looks so cute. I wish Naoko Takeuchi had shown her more often with her hair undone~

These were all drawn on my new marker pad. I can't stand those really thin marker papers, they always get wrinkly when I try to draw on them. This one is much better. It's Letraset Cartridge Paper (Heavyweight), 270 g/m2. Ah, how smoothly the colours blend on this paper! I think I'm in love, haha.

More supervillains

Only this time it's my original characters, Toxic and Doctor Love (yes, I gave them as cheesy villain names as possible. It's a parody, after all!). I had fun working with markers again, but my scanner unfortunately couldn't andle the outbursting pinkness of Love's hairdo. I like this one very much.

Characters done with Copic and Neopiko markers on size B5 marker paper and framed with a gold pen. Background is scrap-booking paper I scanned before in high-res and now cut-and-pasted on this work. In other words, all the materials are traditional but just brought together by Photoshop (because cutting the paper into that exact shape is quite challenging).