Looking for my zen....

So I'm dreading this week, as I've said before.  But there's nothing like a little watercolor for meditation.

Here's my rendition of what it would be like for the "demon of the fleeting blossom" to watch the cherry blossoms with the "woman in the moon."  For those who have played the Hakuouki: Stories of the Shinsengumi game, you will understand the references.

Step 1: start with the doodle

Step 2: doodle with feeling

Step 3: tape up the doodle to fill background

Step 4: add a little moonlight

Step 5: and cherry blossoms







Step 6: remove tape

Step 7: add color

Step 8: add more color! (I liked Hijikata with longer hair so I did a hybrid style for a post-game look)








Hakuouki: In the Moonlight


Add some waka for good measure:  

(68)
By: Sanjo In (Emperor Sanjo)

Kokoro ni mo / Though I do not want 
Arade ukiyo ni / To live on in this floating world, 
Nagaraeba / If I remain here, 


Koishikaru beki / Let me remember only 
Yowa no tsuki kana / This midnight and this moonrise.

When I grow up...

I did some doodling this week to get my mind off of work.  Sometimes my clients...I can't even.... "Why don't people do what I want!  Fix it!" LOL, sure, as soon as my hypnotism license and my gun license come through, I'll get right on that.... X__X

A lot of the Tales Series characters are younger, smaller.  While I don't appreciate ships that involve underaged children (>_<) I often wonder what characters like Anise (Tales of the Abyss), Karol (Tales of Vesperia), Presa (Tales of Symphonia -- though technically she's mentally an adult) and Elize (Tales of Xillia 1, 2) would be like if they grew up.  I admire characters who went through a lot when young, but find their own paths and become awesome in their own right.  They embody the human struggle to become more than what we are.  I get so attached to these JRPG characters, lol, probably because I spend 60 -90 hours of gameplay with them.

This is a simple drawing of what I think Elize would look like by the time she turns 18.  It's a side-by-side comparison of her other incarnations in Xillia 1 (the shy test subject from Labari Hollow) and Xillia 2 (the cheerful schoolgirl who has made lots of friends).  Elize is the only Tales character I can think of where the players are allowed to see her evolution.  The adult version will include her little doll since Teepo will always be a part of her persona. ^__^ v  Her clothes are a mix of Kanbalar and Sharilton, and I used colors from the other two palettes to demonstrate her adult character is a blend of who she was before.  The emblem on her dress is inspired from Gaius' banner ^_^.

-Kero

What if Gaius modeled underwear...?

Yes, this is what I do in my spare time and since I have a notebook full of Gaius sketches in various poses and states of undress, I thought it'd be nice to digitally ink one.  Am I a little embarrassed about my hyperfangirlism? Oh yes.  Will it stop me from continuing?  Oh no.  From experience I learned that I need to just let these things run their course.  Any form of suppression over the things I love to do will only result in repressed feelings that will suddenly erupt out of the blue at very inconvenient times.

Thanks to "Drawing with Jazza" on YouTube, I've been studying the male figure and hands; two subjects I never quite got the hang of when I took my first and last art class in junior high.  (That was back in the day when there were no cell phones and digital art was unheard of.)

Gaius is graceful, and I wanted the lines to flow well.  His pose is both fluid and unmoving.  His clothes are both tight and loose and he's draped in light and shadow.  A bunch of contradictions here, but above all this 2D character is fit and gorgeous.  He's walking towards the camera like he's about to do a hair commercial and he knows he's beautiful.  I'm a sucker for all things beautiful.

Ok, I'm moving on.... sort of....

I couldn't help it.  I had to the urge to paint some rendition of my fanfic Princessia in the Snow, and so I spent days over this drawing.  I'm offering it up to the fans of Xillia & Xillia2.  After creating the fanfic I find myself still fangirling over the pairing.  I think it's an after effect of trying really hard to get into the characters' heads to finish the story and to make the pairing work, so much so that I've become obsessed with them.  -__-; 

So maybe Teepo is saying, "Elize, Gaius says he--" before Gaius stops him.  Who knows.  Whatever inappropriate utterance Teepo is about to make we shall never know.  Elize on the other hand has handpicked her signature flower, princessia, maybe for the graves of Jiao and her parents.  I made Elize's clothes a bit in the fashion of the capital, Kanbalar.  After all, her stay there will be of some duration in my fic.

So there it is, I'm still obsessing over random things before Zestiria comes out...

-Kero