My Digital Art - Japanese Samurai 1

WARNING: This contains a LOT of pictures.

So when I was a seven-year-old kid, the first anime I ever watched was Nobuhiro Watasuki's Rurouni Kenshin (Wandering Samurai). So, I was naturally obsessed by swords, sword fights, and the crazy speed of the moves.

It was from there I really started drawing - making little mangas and such. Now, it's really hard to show others your work on paper without having an ace phone camera -I've lost on that count, so I decided to get myself a cheap rubber-tip stylus (courtesy of my uncle who's also into art) and try out a few colored sketches, the result of which is this:

Yeah, I guess it's not all that squeaky clean, but it's a sketch from someone who's new at this, so bear with me.

Concept

I went for the traditional Japanese manga style - a slender, average-height character in the traditional garb Kenshin wore as an Imperialist Samurai during the days of the Revolution.

But I also added a surreal finish with the background - an excessive amount of stars, that royal(?) blue sky, and the larger-than-life moon.

So how did I go about it?

The Sketch

I used the Autodesk Sketchbook app because it has the largest array of brushes and tools I've seen on any app.

So I made a brief sketch on layer one outlining all the major effects I wanted on the work (including the roof though, so I'm wondering why I got the perspective wrong), and then I set the Opacity at 50%.

I used the Legacy Pencil tool to do this, and then as time went on, I changed some poses, including butting his left hand on his sheathed sword,

Line Art

All the line art was done using the felt tip pen, which was not only well-inked so that my borders could be seen clearly, but also allowed me maximum control of my art. I usually use such pens when drawing traditionally anyway.

When I was done with a little of the line art, I took the liberty of trying out a few of the color schemes on the hair and face of my character. I'll go ahead and say it - I am a disorganized artist - I can start one part, and then jump to another part, depending on what my interests shift to.

Then I decided to check what I'd like his kimono and the outer jacket (or whatever the name is 😂) to be colored. I decided on dull green since that was the color old Japanese artists loved.

And voila!

At this point I was impressed with my color choices, even though as you see from the finished work, I changed a few color choices. I guess I remained undecided to the very end. Even now, I'm still changing the colors UwU.

Anyway 😒, this was what we agreed on after I was done with the color experimentation. And by the, I mean me and the voices in my head. Yeah, a Randy Orton kinda thing.

Shading

When I was sure of my color choices, I got about the hard job of shading a sketch. For the clothes, I went for the 9B pencil. I guess I was eager to work with tools I was familiar with. I took Visual Art for 5 years of High school, so pencils were virtually my only friends as an antisocial geek.

For his shadow in the rooftop, I used the airbrush tool, although I quickly realized that I became carried away and things got really rough 😅

Yikes, that looked tragic! So I finished off a few edits and erased a few times before I got this.

I eventually reduced the amount of shadow as you can see in the final masterpiece, but I didn't screenshot that part sadly.

Highlights

For the rooftop, I had to carefully line the woodwork using the felt tip pen. Then I used the same tool to draw a few tiles, to give it a more realistic finish. Using the sparkle texture tool, I added yellow-colored stars in the background.

Lastly, I used the airbrush tool to dab a little color on his face, and my effort to add more color to the moon proved abortive - I guess I'm still a lot better off on paper, so I left it that way.

In retrospect, I think I did a pretty good job on that moon anyway.

In conclusion, I hope you're a better artist than I am, but I guess I did a pretty good job here, especially when you do not look at it so close up as you're doing now.

Yes, you!