Hi all– I'm back from traveling the past two days and I hope the dads out there had a very Happy Father's Day! I'm about to watch the US Men's National Team play Argentina (GO USA!) in the Copa America Semi-Finals and uploading the photos of my most recent work in progress. Without further explanation (because we have to get the grill going), I started with the Kurumu-inspired Kingdom Death Sci-Fi Twilight Knight pinup and had made progress on her torso, hair, and skin. Here's where I started:
For those just joining the ongoing work in progress, she's inspired by Kurumu Kurono, a character from an anime called "Rosario + Vampire". It's my first anime-inspired mini, and the busty Kingdom Death pinup is the perfect blank canvas for this challenge! I also hooked up an old tablet to play various anime while I painted on her– it was kind of perfect! Of course, I have to watch the dub versions because I can't read subtitles and paint at the same time. Still, at one point, I looked up and the anime screen had all the colors I was painting in my mini :)
However, I did run into a snag– evidently I painted her forehead blue. I only realized this when looking at the concept art, where she wears a thin headband. Whoops. Once I saw it, I couldn't un-see it. It looked like part of her hair! I've still yet to devide whether or not I want to fix it, so I decided I needed to attach her arm next and I'd revisit that option at a later time.
Fast forward several hours and her arm is attached and her armor plating is coming along nicely! I want it to be muted when compared to her mustard yellow and green bodice, and it's slowly coming together.
Right now I'm extra-focused on her hair– I'm blending and highlighting all the way up to pure white to get a nice contrast. I'm sure this technique would work with any hair color, but it's especially striking with her vivid blue strands!
Once I wanted to take a break and do something mindless, I started to play this game I bought on Steam called "Amnesia: Memories". It's an otome game, and I've never played one of these before. For the non-otaku folks out there, it's a dating simulation game, or as Wikipedia describes it: "the player takes the role of a female character who can choose from a variety of male characters as her 'love interest'." The Amnesia game inspired an anime series which I watched not too long ago. The anime was almost enjoyable, except I hated the main character and the plot was disjointed... but I digress. I've played through the first save point and it's pretty amusing, however, I can only play so much at one time. While it's really cheesy, I'm not ashamed to admit it tickles a girly part of my brain that's still connected to my inner twelve year old.
Alright, that's all the time I have– off to watch soccer. Go Team USA!!!