Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Man of Steel


Superman! This was supposed to be an entry for Toycon Philippine's DC Fanart contest I wasn't able to submit it before the deadline though because of my Saturday class schedule. I'm thankful for the kind staff for letting me display it amongst the contestants though.

Creation process. I used Cristopher Reeve's 1970's superman pictures as reference for this one. However I made some drastic changes. In my opinion Chris' superman was more on the athletic body type rather than the comic's bulkier build. So thats where I let my creativity flow, I added more bulk to everything. Though Christopher Reeve's features are barely noticable in my painting I think people will still know my work as superman even if i removed the S on his chest.

Thanks for reading and I'll make sure to find a contest that I can reach the deadline with next time.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Big Red


Who said people who spent too much time watching movies and reading comic books were useless?

Iron man, done this right after watching Iron Man two. Bought a copy of IFX that day, and read a particular article on clouds which I found very useful for this piece.

I was experimenting on the drawing elements of Metal and Clouds. The clouds were done first in this piece, thanks to the guide from the magazine and my other reference books. Metal however was a different story, no matter how much I read and reread my reference materials I couldn't get it right the first few times. Even now I think I haven't fully grasped painting metal. I can say however, I've learned at least two of its aspects.

One is that metal's color varies depending on the environment. For example the reflection on the gold plating, aside from having a white sheen, the sky's color adds to it making it a tad bit blue/grey instead of pure white.

Two, the color of metal increases in saturation as it begins to get darker, and decreases in saturation as it becomes lighter.(Correct me if I'm wrong here.)

Well I'll keep this one short. Thanks for reading.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Way of the Samurai

Ok my first artwork for this blog, my fan art of Mirumoto Kei.

Who is she? She's a character, card rather from AEG's Legend of the Five Rings TCG.

To make her, I used a method called photo-tracing wherein; as the name states, a reference photo is traced. The difference however from actual tracing is that you don't copy the entire image, rather use it as a base.

For my process, I used an image of a cos-player for my reference; I'll post it once i get it from my laptop. Placing the image in a layer with very low opacity I drew the anatomy and then the clothes that became my line-art. Once I had my line art I proceeded with colors, again making use of the reference image.

I didn't color the work exactly as the image though; this is where my creativity went wild. Instead of copying the image exactly as it was, i used it only as a value guide. With that I now knew what parts of the image were lighted and where the shadows should be. This method gives me a great advantage as I can willingly change colors schemes, the method gave me the option of making different versions with ease since i didn't have to remake the lighting and shading, I merely changed colors and hues.

Now I know some artists frown upon this method, I however openly accept it especially for its advantages w/c are:

A way to learn anatomy.
Different clothes and settings
Value guide.

However like all things it too has its disadvantages:

Makes you seem unoriginal
You can become dependent
May be part of copyright disputes.

Thanks for viewing and have a good day.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

An Introduction

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gino Cobarrubias, a simple animation artist with a passion for art, anime, cartoons, books and games. If you tell me to choose one; I'd probably say art since the latter are all byproducts of art.

Whats with the blog? Well aside from becoming a more professional online gallery compared to my deviant art, I plan to post some of my short stories, possible reviews or experiences with games, cartoons and anime, and even just to let out my thoughts. When I'm good and confident enough maybe a tutorial too.

A deeper puropose? Well I'm pretty sure some people always get told that they're wasting their time on their video games or card games or even their doodles, I intend to show whoever said those is wrong. I want to show that whatever your work be it a doctor, psychologist, engineer or something strange like a soldier or astronaut; art, anime, cartoons, books and games can brighten up anyone's day and even give them a little bit of cash.

Well, It's almost two in the morning, I wanted to post a few of my artworks but for now you just have to click my deviant art link.