Here's the making-of to that finale piece. Again the idea is you place whoever's on stream or whatever in the "take my energy" meme and then spam it. Fun.
I was excited to give KNKL's coloring technique a real try-out, start to finish, here. It basically entails starting BW and moving to colors on top and below that.
I was relieved to find it was quite similar to my old digital coloring technique, but just a little more streamlined, fine-tunable, etc. Even use the same chalk brush.
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Not my final rejected concept exactly, but pretty darn close.
A play on that Twitch "take my energy" meemu.
Obv. a real name would take place of the dummy name.
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More sketches they passed on for what would become the Kuniyoshi piece.
This one was fun, just like they are sorta competing with each other for the viewer's attention like Shonen rivals or something.
4/20/16
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And the final of the old piece where I had to draw an ukiyoe version of Yamaken.
Did this quite a while ago, but managed to find the pencils, too.
To give you an idea of how long ago I did this, this is their generation 1 uniform, and he's not even on the cheemu any mo'.
Pro tip: doing ukiyoe stuff creates a hole that is quite pigeon-shaped.
4/19/16
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Super old lines to a Yamaken commission. He had just joined the team at the time, so they wanted a little ukiyoe headshot of him to match the then duo that comprised the cheemu.
Just in case, I decided to make a full-body shot, though obviously I had a hunch any extra effort wouldn't be necessary.
I got to play him the weekend before he top 8ed a Pro Tour, ya know. Super nice, extremely methodical player and dude.
He's now on team Cygames. So.
4/19/16
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A little ad I made inspired by Dragon Ball Z, text-free version.
Printed version has JP up top and Angloos on bottom.
It occurs to me this looks pretty (extra) ridiculous without the text.
4/18/16
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And old concept for an old dealio.
I liked the subtle blood splatter, the idea is he just got done beating up the background guy.
4/17/16
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The antagonist to the little mystery adventure dealio was Geralf and this was his profile pic concept sketch.
Had a lot of fun with the background window's light effects and zombies. Finally getting to put those KNKL lessons into effect, feels great, but worried I'm messing up my back from how I keep finding myself contorting when I use the tablet...I don't get why this is happening all of a sudden.
4/14/16
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A little concept sketch for a mystery/puzzle themed project based on Innistrad and Zendikar.
Plus the extended edition hyper remix HD turbo ultra.
4/13/16
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Another ad thingie I made, with the JP swapped out for some neato lyrics by TV on the Radio. Originally it was about a little viewing station you could watch old Pro Tours and stuff at.
And no, I'm not a Breaking Bad fan, I just like this song, and later found out it had some kind of BrBa tie-in.
I tried watching it, and it was so boring! I was like, this is what all the hype is about? It was like Hal sitting in a living room while a lady was talking incessantly or something and he was miserable having to listen to her(?)...I remember he had a briefcase or something that he was preoccupied with.
It was a while ago. Man, was it back in the US? I can't imagine I've had any opportunity to watch Western shows in JP...don't even have a TV.
Anyway, cards we used were--last call for guesses--as follows:
See Beyond
Propaganda
Evermind
Unblinking Bleb
Easy, wasn't it?
4/12/16
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The final colors of this fully digital piece.
It was for some flyer about a dangerous street corner or whatever, and he's wearing one of their sweaters.
Notably, I was using my pre-KNKL coloring style, which I learned from studying Chamba and other cel-shaders.
After watching KNKL, I learned there was a bit of a cleaner, tweakable method using clipping masks.
4/9/16
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Linework for a dealio.
4/9/16
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An old, abandoned concept. Woulda been neat.
4/5/16
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This was the sketch they went with for the Kuniyoshi piece.
I knew it would pigeonhole me but, hey, man, what are you gonna do, ya know?
4/4/16
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Another rejected shirt design concept from a million years ago.
It's based on the chapter headers from the incredibly stylish, minimalist Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, which feature these gorgeous, heavy black, highly-stylized paper cut-out-looking illustrations. So at first glance, they look like those traditional, old illustrations, but when you stop and look closer, you'll see modern stuff like cell phones and things.
3/29/16
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A rejected sketch for a shirt.
Rwar.
3/24/16
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A sketch they passed on for the Ultimatum piece.
Felt nice and contemplative.
3/22/16
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A trio of concepts we didn't use for the Kuniyoshi piece.
I really liked the kinda stereotypical shonen anime arrangement on the left. It was to have Mario Bros.-style clouds, even.
The middle was neat, but it would have been grueling to get everything lined up perfectly, so I'm actually happy they didn't go with that one!
The last one was just pure goofy shonen; made so many sketches for this, just wanted to mess around.
3/21/16
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One of the rejected sketches for Sunshine.
I liked it. Contemplative. Quiet. Slightly intimidating.
3/20/16
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