Edited in Canva Pro.
Sources and Materials
Below are the materials I used in this art.
Photo taken using Tecno Spark Go.
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This article is going to be longer than normal. In this one, I've used new techniques, new art tools and new styles which would make me sharing my thought process longer than normal as well.
Lore
Kartiana von Ignatius, a child born from the hidden affairs of two royal bloods, King Ignatius of the Ignatius Kingdom from the Burning Lands and Princess Dith'ra of the Kingdom of Legas from the Undead Woods.
Kartiana was a secret child and raised as a commoner by the help of King Ignatius's loyal servant. Ever since her childhood, Kartiana showed impressive skills in fire magic which led her to be enrolled in the magic academy. Here, Kartiana became friends with another kid named, Tarsa, who excelled more than anyone anticipated.
Maybe due to her bloodline, Kartiana's flame slowly changed color from red to blue, then eventually purple and black. This made her a target of bullying for her unique ability which, in turns of event, transpired into a fight leading with Kartiana swallowing another student in black flames. The news quickly spread around the kingdom and Kartiana was forced to be exiled.
During her travels, Kartiana's power got stronger, sometimes uncontrollable which led her to be scouted by the captain of the royal army of the Kingdom of Legas in Undead Woods.
Upon rising in ranks, Kartiana was officially adopted by the royal family. Here, Kartiana eventually learned of her origin as well as her true mother. Kartiana changed and assumed a new identity as Karte Legas who is now a prominent commander of the Chaos Legion even at her young age.
Fun Fact: "Karte" is a latin word meaning "cards." A deck of cards have either a black suit (Spade and Clubs) or a red suit (Hearts and Diamonds) which is also the source of Karte's theme.
Step 1 Draft
The inspiration for this character is named Lylia from the game, Mobile Legends. She has the skin, "School Idol."
Screenshot from my Mobile Legends account and Google Search.
Step 2 Inking
Using Dong-a Gel Pen Black, I've done an initial ink to make the needed lines more permanent ready for coloring.
Step 3 Colored Ink and Additional Details
This is a new step. On my previous contest piece, I've realized that I needed to find a way to make the lines pop out. I bought some cheap unbranded Gel Pens from Shopee in order to help me realize this vision.
In addition to that, even on this step, you can have a good view of how the end product will look like. This also reduces the time for me on choosing the appropriate colors for the next steps as I already have a guide on what colors I needed.
Unfortunately, I cannot find a Peach colored pen for the skin which is a big disappointment.
Lastly, I also added a manga technique called "Hatching." It is a way to add shadows to the art by using lines that are near each other. You can see this in the neck area, arms and ears
Step 4 Skin Colored
I think this is the only part I still added the idea of highlights and shadows. I want to make a bit of psychotic, crazy look character. This requires a darkened area around the eyes and a normal one on the rest.
If you add shadows around the eyes and used light colors on the eyes itself, there would be an illussion of contrast making the lighter part standout more.
Colors Used: 048, 061, 047.
Step 5 Hair (Red Part)
I originally wanted a light red color on this but not light enough to be pink. I don't have such color in my Brutfuner set of 72. To make a workaround, I added a light red on the whole hair, then overlapped a white one. I did this overlapping step for like 4 or 5 times to achieve this look.
It is still not as clean as I wanted but you can get the idea. This is to make sure the color is lighter than the Red Gel Pen, therefore allowing me to use the red pen to simulate hair strands without making the whole art dark.
This is also a technique I use in my manga before but instead of just black, I used a colored pen.
Colors used: 030 (Red), 023 (White)
I basically did the same one above but violet instead of red.
Colors Used: 036
Step 6 Mouth and Eyes
For the mouth, I just filled it with Gel Pen Red. I was thinking of adding other colors but the space is too small.
For the eyes, I originally thought of using different colored eyes but eventually scrapped the idea. I think there's too much Red and Violet in this art and I want the eyes to pop.
I decided to add a yellow Gel Pen to highlight the outside of the eyes and Red Gel Pen to give color to the eyes. I also made sure to add a small oblong part on the eyes to act as shine in the eyes. You can normally see this in anime where the character are a bit crazy. By the way, I call this the Crazy Eyes look.
Lastly, a yellow colored pencil in the middle to highlight the eyes even more.
Colors used: Red Gel Pen, Yellow Gel Pen, 043 (Yellow)
Step 7 Blouse and Skirt Colored
I want to keep the theme intact so I decided to make the blouse in red and the skirt in purple.
The one thing you would notice in this section is that the clothes do not have any shadows like my previous ones. I normally see this style on animes and mangas alike and decided to copy this style.
This style seems to work good for me since it reduces the focus on the clothes and more on the face, which is the better part of my skills.
Colors used: 029 and 030 for the reds, 003 for the violet, and pencil shading for the whites
Step 8 Cursed Flames
Since Karte is a dual splinter of Fire and Death, I want to make a cursed flame instead of a normal one.
The challenge in this step is balancing the smooth and rough lines to make the black part look the outer part of the flames.
Colors Used: 013, Dong-a Gel Pen Black
Step 9 Background Fill
I used a hard pressure Gray around the body and light pressure on the rest of the background.
I also added a pink hatch on the skirt in between the reds to make it look like a shadow.
Colors used: 059
Step 10 Re-Inking and Final Detailing
When colored pencils run over the inked parts, some of the inked parts becomes lighter in color. To fix this, I decided to run another layer of ink as the last step on some needed areas to highlight the lines.
Since my last art, Tenyii Striker, I somehow starts to see my own art style. I was originally into drawing manga and even made comics that I posted here when I started. I think the best part of my steps are my inking stage.
I added the new 3rd step in order to highlight my strengths. I will keep improving on this unutil I become consistent apply all my manga knowledge and able to show my strengths which would then become my very own style.
I am very proud of this week's work as maybe my best work of my whole artist's career.
I am planning to go on this route in the future as I think it is a good style for my skills. One thing I am concerned with is that people who may see this, including the curators, may think I am being lazy by not applying shadows to the clothes anymore.
I think the style fits me more as I can combine my manga knowledge and digital art knowledge into my own style while highlighting the lines, in which I think I excel the most.
In other words, this new style that I envision highlights my strengths while covering my weakness as an artist.
- This post is an entry for Splinterland's Art Contest.
- Other sources that I do not own are cited under their respective photos. Photos and drawings without cited sources are mine and made for this post.
- Animated Banners and Dividers are edited in Canva Pro.
- Some of the fonts used are from instafonts.io
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