#but with watercolour art things are different like colouring outside the lines is pretty normal

[bmpmp3]

artfight aka the month where i agonize for hours about whether or not my colouring style counts as “rough colour” or “clean colour“

[bluwiikoon-archive]

Yo how did you paint those old style Pokemon like that ?

Strap yourselves in friends because here’s a tutorial! :D

Now firstly you’ll want to grab refs for whatever it is you want to draw. This may include modern sugi art (if you’re drawing a modern pokemon), and I definitely recommend selecting old Sugimori art refs based on the colours, shapes, pose and body style of what you want to draw. I know @sometimesnosepass by memory so I just pick some old Sugi refs for this tutorial.

The first proper step is, of course, to sketch something!

When sketching, do keep in mind the stylizations that gen 1 art has. For example, instead of using Nosepass’ normal eyes (which are black ovals) I opted for Clefairy’s style of eyes here.

For something like my Fennekin, I also kept in mind things like how the fur is styled in old gens. Things are a bit smoother nowadays in Pokemon, but in old art Sugimori wasn’t afraid to get fluffy at times. Animalistic Pokemon are also less skinny and take on rounder shapes (Pikachu is a famous example). Use those refs!!

Now of course, you’ll need some good brushes for the linework and colouring. I recommend a rough pencil-ish brush for the lines, and a textured watercolour brush for the colouring. Below are the SAI2 and SAI1 brushes I use, but definitely experiment until you get something you are comfortable with. (Also, if you want my textures, here is a download link. Google how to add them to your SAI if you need to!)

Anyway, lines! As all the gen 1 artwork was hand-drawn they are full of small imperfections, but that’s what gives the art character and makes us all love it in my opinion. As such, take it easy and don’t be afraid to be a little wobbly.

The next step is to loosely select the outside of the linework…

…and invert it! On a lower layer, fill your selection with white.

A common thing with uploads of RBY Sugimori art is that they are a bit rough around the edges, since it is quite tough to cut out hand-drawn art for transparency. As such, if you want to be accurate to this kind of thing, the loose selection gives us some little white edges around the artwork.

So, what’s next? Either lock your white layer OR duplicate and set it to clipping group. This is so you can blend the colouring without it extending past the boundaries of the white base. And… start colouring!

The brushes I use make things darker as you layer them, so my strategy is to blend some light parts and then colour in some dark spots with hard edges. Remember, the old Sugimori style uses a lot of white in its colouring, so you have to preserve that kind of thing in your own piece and let yourself have some highlights. The colouring also tends to be quite muted and pale due to the scanning process, so use pale and muted colours in return. Pay attention to your references!

Sloooowly work at it. Sugimori was pretty dang good and didn’t let differently-coloured parts overlap, but as you know traditional watercolours are still prone to small mistakes and on some of his art pieces you can see it. Thus, be careful, but don’t worry too much about things like the blue on Nosepass’ nose.

Colouring differently-coloured parts works pretty much the same, but we won’t be stopping there.

With your rough/lineart brush set to a slightly lower opacity, just go around the colouring and give them some harder or rougher edges where they seem to need it. As you can see on the examples of Sugi art on the right, there are definitely places in the edges where they have a textured finish or a harder edge. This was my first time doing this style on SAI2, so I feel I did make my watercolour brush a little too soft!

So it’s looking pretty good! But there’s still more..!

On your colouring layer, set your layer texture to some kind of papery thing. Or for other programs, perhaps some kind of slight noise overlay. It’s noticeable, I promise!

Duplicate your linework layer and blur it (for SAI1 you will have to do this by hand sadly, but that may actually give it a better result).

And finally, set the opacity of the blurred linework to around 40% (or whatever you prefer) and Clipping Group it to the colouring layer.

Another optional thing (which I did here) is to colour the main linework off-black to give it a bit of a washed-out look. It can help sometimes!

And… you’re done…!?

Go and stun everyone with your newfound Sugimori skills!! I believe in you!

(And if you enjoyed this tutorial, please consider donating! Thank you! ^^)

[annasadventuresabroad]

Anna’s Art Adventures: Musée Delacroix

I planned to come here after the Louvre back in November, but was too exhausted after 4 hours of art that time that I postponed and postponed until finally, today was the day! Though the online reviews are mixed (ranging between “charming” and “disappointing”), I was excited to see the studio of this French master who captured one of my favourite paintings of all time that hangs in my library:

So yes, my expectations were pretty high - and my excitement about going to a gallery dedicated to solely 1 artist was even higher due to the lack of art for over a week (hashtag essaywriting). Here it goes. 

For starters, I had a bit of a hard time finding it, as it’s truly a bit hidden. My google maps was helpful, as there were no signs - something quite strange, considering that the Louvre ticket (if I remember correctly) includes a free visit to this museum on the same day. Anyways - I was on a small square and then entered a small gated street and then saw this, which meant I hit jackpot: 

(Note: A French drapeau and a plaque always means something important.) Thrilled, I entered and got my “Free under 25 EU citizen” ticket and went upstairs. 3 rooms. There were two or three explanatory texts (in French, English and German), all of which said in different ways that the selected artwork were chosen by a French (?) writer with whom they (the museum) had the honour to collaborate. Alongside wonderful wonderful lithographs on literary works like Faust and Romeo and Juliet, there were also some other artists who were pretty much irrelevant. I thought I’ll give it a shot, but soon I just got annoyed by this selection. A German film maker’s clip from a street. A horse sculpture by someone. A poor watercolour watercolour sketch of a cologne bottle and something else next to Delacroix’s detailed and skillfully drawn slippers. To put it short, I thought there was very very little for the 1. amount of space and 2. normal entrance fee. I found out more from this information book about the museum than from the exhibition itself. That’s probably an indicator about the place. Also, here wasn’t even a single explanation why this French writer is significant enough to make this selection...

So far quite... meh. 

Delacroix’s studio is located right next to the house of this “special” exhibition - and to get there, you have to go down the stairs. En route, you notice a wonderful sight: a petit charming garden! Turns out, this garden was specially architected and renovated in 2012 by the head gardeners from the Tuilleries (that fancy huge garden space in front of the Louvre) to match that in Delacroix’s time. Again, there was an attempt to “modernize” it by having some halo-glass, sound-making “art” installation in the middle of the grass square, which was extremely distracting and unnecessary. (The cable coming out of the house is probably electricity cord for this installation, I now realise.) 

As for the studio itself - it has >only< Delacroix’s paintings, which was a joy. Red walls, paintings (mainly portraits, studies and a few sketches), a little bit of light from the garden, creaky floors. I had it all to myself for a while, which was nice. According to that information book, the studio was in the hands of some local society and it just barely got saved from destruction. Shame shame that there wasn’t enough interest/success to keep it as Delacroix had it in the same way that Monet’s atelier is well-kept in Giverny. It’d surely be interesting to see how Delacroix’s working space looked in real life.

I bought some postcards in the ticket office - sadly, they didn’t have any of those wonderful lithographs, which is quite a pity. They were really exquisite, especially the Faust ones that had a line or two below the drawing. 

While I was happy to finally visit this museum, I must say that they could do better. I’ll live without having a small postcard of Delacroix’s lithograph, but somehow the place lacked any excitement and warmth. It was also rather not really smart nor considerate that the studio is reachable only by stairs, hence making the only-Delacroix-works-filled rooms unaccessible to the elder or handicapped visitors (while reading that book, about 3 turned away once they noticed the stairs outside the door leading towards the garden). There surely is a way to improve these things, but generally I do understand why people found this place disappointing. :( On the plus side, I had it for free so my wallet isn’t crying and the sun began peeking out, so the charming houses got some more colour:

I then headed to (yet) a(nother) coffee place that was ranked for having “drinkable” covfefe. Malongo was fine, more canteen-like than coffee shop, but decent cappucino. There I wrote some postcards and found my route to another exhibition, as it was only 2:30 when I finished at the Delacroix. 

Conclusion:

Anna’s Art Adventures rating for Delacroix: 2.5/5. 

+ lithographs, good information book (on sale), good detailed commentaries in every room in English, well-kept garden.

- Irrelevant, unfocused modern artwork by an unknown writer, could do with some text about the paintings on the walls, hard-to-access studio and garden for elderly/handicapped visitors. 

Would visit again/recommend? Not really, better to look at Tripadvisor pictures.