Color Studies

I’m making an effort to improve my color sense and my knowledge of environment and background painting. I recently started watching two shows, BNA on Netflix, and Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun on Hulu. They’ve both got absolutely gorgeous color, and I’ve done a few studies from each to try and learn from it! I gave myself an hour (or hour-ish) per study.

BNA’s artists use very punchy, intense colors, even in scenes that are serene and quiet. I’ve noticed a lot of blues and pinks bounced off each other for storytelling reasons—it’s especially noticeable in the closing credits sequence. I love how warmth and coolness are balanced in the scenery, it’s unexpected and very stylish. I highly recommend checking out the show, not only for the art but the story as well!

These three studies are from Episode 1 of BNA. I took many, many screenshots from a few episodes, but these were the first I got down to painting.

BNA #1

Everything in this scene near the beginning of the episode was soaked in blue. I had trouble capturing the feeling that the objects and scenery weren’t blue themselves, but the atmosphere was blue.

BNA #2

I absolutely loved the colors in this big party scene . I’ve noticed that the show’s artists are very willing to flood out the local color of their characters, which is done very successfully for the atmosphere of the scenes.

BNA #3

This study is from near the end of the episode. It’s a right before a big showdown, and the harsh neon pink and turquoise are starting to clash. I loved the drama here and really wanted to learn from the warped perspective as well as the powerful color. It was a difficult study to tackle.

The colors in Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun are no less stunning, but they’re a little more lived-in than those in BNA. There’s a bit more warmth and softness. I’d say that the colors in BNA are like those reflecting off of sharp metal or a crystal prism, whereas the palette in Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun is more like a block of richly dyed papers or fabrics. Material, rather than light, based. Still, there are some very dramatic and intense color moments that enhance the subject matter of the show: a series of very disturbing hauntings taking place in a Japanese junior high. Perhaps the sharp colors that cut through bring an element of the supernatural into a physical, material world? Spooky…

TBHK 1

This is a scene from the first episode of the series, from which I removed the characters so that I could focus more on the atmosphere. One could just sink into that warm light, right? As bright as those colors are, it feels deceptively peaceful…

TBHK 2

This is a quick establishing shot of the school from Episode 2. The palette is so real—clearly representative of a brilliant sunny day—and yet so unreal, especially with that brilliant raspberry red of the scaffolding above the stairs.

I intend to continue these studies and see where it takes me! I’m already seeing an improvement in my color sense in my other work. Wish me luck.

Trickster Gods & Doodles

I just completed a commission for two friends of mine with whom I play Dungeons and Dragons. I love D&D, but my ADHD means that I need to be doing something with my hands while I’m participating in the story narrative—otherwise I start disconnecting from the game.

My solution to this has been to draw along with the story, and doodle out the funniest or most interesting incidents while we play. At the end of our play sessions, I show the group what I’ve drawn. Every group I’ve played with has been very encouraging, and it makes me so happy to see how delighted they are with the results. Some people even save the doodles and use them as avatars on Twitter or Discord (with credit, of course!) Plus, it immortalizes our weirdest and wackiest moments in the best way.

Doodles from a game session on February 20th.

During one session with my Thursday night group, the mysterious god of our grumpy Genasi cleric Kai appeared. A semi-sinister trickster god, who always hid his face behind a wolf mask, appeared in physical form before the party, and began dispensing cryptic information to us. I scribbled a little drawing of him snickering over his cup of tea.

The Wolf enjoys his tea.

Our game master and Kai’s player liked my drawing enough to commission me to do a full painting of the trickster god, who went by no name other than The Wolf. I was immensely flattered and excited to do a full painting of this character! I’ve painted two player characters from this game already (Kai, and Khandas, our paladin) and being invited to contribute again to the visual vocabulary of this world is very cool. So, I got to work.

I needed a more fleshed-out design for the Wolf’s mask, first. The gods of the pantheon to which the Wolf belongs all wear these strange masks, depicting a different animal. These are not nice deities, either—in fact, even though my character’s father has been revealed to be one of them, they are the adventure’s main antagonists. I drew inspiration from Japanese oni masks, which have such wonderfully intricate carving, but also perfect ambiguous expressions. It’s part snarl, part laugh, part whine of pain. I also added multiple irises and bizarre pupils, because one of the more fascinating things about masks to me is when you can’t quite tell where the eye-holes are.

Since designing the Wolf’s mask, I’ve also doodled the Unicorn and Panther…guess how many irises they’ve each got?!

For the illustration piece itself, I browsed through images of ballet dancers for inspiration for the character’s pose. I pictured the Wolf with a very lithe and athletic body, and I thought some of his wilder magic could be represented through dance…

Rough sketch and posing.

It took some time for me to choose the correct lighting and color for the piece. I really wanted to nail it. I ended up scrapping the color halfway through to restart because it felt awkward and stilted and I knew I couldn’t rescue it without a full restart. I’m very grateful for the painting teacher who taught me to wipe something out and start again if I’m not happy—it saves so much time and pain in the long run! Chances are you can get to the same point, and go further, a lot faster than you think you can. Anyway…

The final product. I’m very pleased with the result, after many long hours of labor. Cheers!

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He’s a tricky one.

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The website is up and running! Look forward to many posts in the future as I continue to update with new artwork.