Style challenge

Today I drew myself in 9 different cartoon styles. These are all my favourite styles, characters or stories which have influenced my childhood and my drawing style. Let's see if you can recognize them ;)

The one in the center is my own style

So here's the solution and some information about the styles:

Center: my own style
I prefered to draw myself in a more realistic way as in my usual illustrations.

Center, right side: Shoujo
This is a style often used for romantic manga. Eventhough everything is exaggerated a little, I tried to keep my facial features visible.

Center, left side: Studio Ghibli / Hayao Miyazaki
I had to include this style because I absolutely love his movies. Eventhough it was a challenge to draw my long, straight hair because I had no reference for this. So it turned out a little strange. 
I really like to see myself as a Studio Ghibli character because I feel like I could belong in one fantastic movie of theirs now.
reference used: Mononoke (Princess Mononoke), Kiki (Kiki's delivery service), Sophie (Howl's moving castle)

Bottom, right side: Gravity Falls
Gravity Falls is my favourite cartoon, so I had lots of fun drawing myself as one of these characters. I really like how it turned out, besides the eyes which are not close together enough.
reference used: Wendy

Bottom, center: Tim Burton
I really love Tim Burton's movies, especially his style. To recreate it, I used grey and black colour pencils over my Copics. This is one of my favourites :)
reference used: Victoria (Corpse Bride)

Bottom, left side: The adventures of Tintin / Hergé
I absolutely love this cartoon, so I tried to keep the style as close as possible. I used drawing ink instead of multiliner, which was really a challenge. Also I had no reference for a young female character.
reference: Tintin

Top, right side: Asterix / Albert Uderzo
Since my father has collected the cartoons of Asterix in his youth, I grew up with them. And I still love them. This version of myself is my absolute favourite. I also used drawing ink for this one.
reference: Panacea

Top, center: Disney
As any child, I also grew up with Disney. But I like the old movies more, so I wanded to draw me as a princess like Cinderella, Snow White or Aurora. To archieve the former look, I outlined with similar colours as I coloured. I really like this version, but I should have used a lighter blue for outlining the shirt.
reference: Aurora (Sleeping beauty), Cinderella (Cinderella)

Top, left side: Spirou & Fantasio / Franquin
I love their adventures. Actually, I wanted to draw a character of Gaston, another comic by Franquin which I like more. But since it's both Franquin, it doesn't matter.
reference: Stephanie

Let me know which one is your favourite and what I could have done better in your opinion :)

How to draw eyes

There are several ways to draw eyes, but today I show you some eyeshapes I draw often.
Some people start by drawing the pupil, whereas I prefere to start with the upper eyelid, but that doesn't make much difference.
Basically, I start with a straight or slightly curved line for the upper eyelid. 

You can draw a line to connect the upper and the under eyelid.

Then I draw a curved line for the under eyelid and then the details (brow, eyelashes, circle for the iris etc.). Just try what is comfortable for you.

 If there is something wrong about one eye, you mostly will recognize after drawing in the pupil, so I normally do this step last. For example, the upper eyelid of the left eye curves more upwards than the other. But this is just a little difference, so I won't correct this.

Here are some eyeshapes I have drawn for several of my characters:

As you can see, an eye has following parts which you can draw very different: upper eyelid, under eyelid, eyelashes, crease, eyebrow, iris, pupil. 
Mostly, male characters don't have eyelashes because it makes them appear more female, but there are also mangaka who create female characters without lashes as well to give them a tough look. Also rounder, bigger eyes are often used for young or naive, childish characters who appear very cute.
Because there are so many ways to draw an eye different, I can't show you a tutorial. But that's the fun part: you have to experiment and create new shapes on your own.
There are only three rules to draw eyes:

1: Eyes don't have to be even, because in nature nothing is exact the same. Just make sure that they look alike.
2: Between the two eyes is the space of normally one eye.
3: Manga eyes don't have to look realistic. Just be creative and draw the perfect eyes for your character!

Draw this again: Redrawing my first manga drawing

I watched many artists redrawing their old artwork to see their progress lately, so I wanted to do this, too. I started drawing manga two years ago, so I picked my very first manga drawing for this challenge.

I tried to draw this after my mom found an old magazine which featured a manga drawing course for children. Of course these drawings were very simple but I managed to draw a magician (yes, his hair is based on Fairy Tail's Midnight):

Few months later I buyed the 'Manga master class' by Mark Crilley and started to learn how to draw better. Still a very cartoony style, but I improved very fast. As I realized, my style became more realistic after practicing and practicing. Now I learn more things about drawing manga with the 'How to draw manga' series of Carlsen Manga! which I highly recommend to you if you want to learn drawing manga as well.

So this is my redrawn picture:

I used Copic markers instead of coloured pencils, but I also included my original medium. I also changed the pose and the outfit a little, so it doesn't look so empty and cartoony. I also have improved at making pictures feel dark and threatening while looking beautiful and attractive.

If you compare these two pictures, you can clearly see that two years of drawing make pretty much difference.

First of all, I draw more realistic eyes and face shapes in general, eventhough it's still hard for me to draw ears.

I know, I can't draw hands. Not at all. Surprisingly the hands on the old drawing look more like hands than the others... And somehow the left lace has managed to overcome gravity? But still, it looks way better than before.

I really loved to do this challenge just because you really recognize how you improved and that you'll always become better by time. This is what I want to tell you: don't give up and always try to draw or do something new. I also started by admiring drawings of others who really could draw. I used to think by myself: "I wish I could draw like this.". And you know what? I grabbed a pen and a paper and I drew. And now I can draw like that and in a few years I can draw even better. 

Guys, don't be afraid of drawing just because you can't draw something correctly. If I'd give up just because I can't draw hands properly, I'll never manage to draw them better.

Bleeding Heart illustrations

Today I finally finished the cover for my comic 'Bleeding Heart' and I'd like to show you two of my masterpieces so far :)

The first one shows the three main characters of the comic: Victoria and Lamia, who we know already, and the mysterious Lucien Oddwood, who we'll meet soon. There will be more illustrations of the most important characters someday ;). This picture is coloured with Copic markers, unlukily you can't see the light shades of Lamia's and Lucien's skin in the digital version.

And the second one is the cover. Here I used Copic markers and coloured pencils to colour. Also in this digital picture, you can't see the light skin colours. I hope this picture makes you curious about the story while also not telling too much. I first tried to draw an upside down head but thanks to a book which shows how to draw these things it turned out very well.

A comic: Bleeding Heart

In Germany, we've summer holidays now. So this first week I spent drawing a comic/manga. I'd really like to show it here and maybe continue drawing it every holidays. I'll be visiting a part of my family in Hungary next week, so I won't be able to work on it then. And because I'll be really busy studying (the next are my two last years in school) and one page takes 4-5 hours to complete, I'm not sure if I will be able to work on it on normal holidays which dure only 1-2 weeks, but we'll see.
So, let's tell you about the story, finally. It takes place in a world where not only humans, but also vampires and ghosts etc. live. The plot bases on the fact, that every creature has a soul that can be classified into "bad" and "good" souls, which is total nonsense because there are also beings that are in between. Ok, I think the rest will be clear through reading the story.
(Beforehand, I apologize for my lazyness not doing much background, not being careful and ink wrong lines, not caring about the length or flow of hair... and any mistake in language)
Just a warning: people in this world speak very different. Should be a slang or so, but I made it up myself, so sometimes when they talk about themself in past, they might leave out the 'I' and so on. I hope you'll still understand. If not, please tell me, so I can stop doing that the next times.

I hope, you enjoy :). I was drawing a picture of all three protagonists before (and it turned out to be my best manga illustration so far), so I'll be posting that when it's coloured ;)

Ouran HSHC Nekozawa's Beelzenef DIY

Since Nekozawa is my favourite and because I love cats (and puppets, too), I will show you how to make his cat puppet named Beelzenef ;)

What you need:

• cream-white fabric for the puppet
• white fabric or felt for the eyes
• pink fabric or felt for the mouth
• neadle & thread or sewing machine
• scissors for fabric
• pencil and scissors for the pattern
• black pen to outline the eyes and mouth
• fabric - or super glue

Step 1:

Make a pattern which is much bigger than your hand for the puppet and also patterns for the eyes and the mouth. Draw them on and add the seam allowance, then sew.
Tip: it's better if you sew little bows between the head and the arms and not straight edges.

Step 2:

Trim the edges a bit and make little cuts on the curves (marked with blue), iron it and turn it inside out. Take a pencil or anything like that to turn out the hands and ears. Don't forget to iron every piece made of fabric.

Step 3:

Glue eyes and mouth on and outline them. Don't foget the pupils.

And that's it, you're done!
Tip: Put a piece of cardboard inside the puppet so the glue and the ink won't come through both layers of fabric.

Enjoy your time with your Beelzenef (don't forget to curse someone) and we will see next time!

Counting the days to my birthday

I decided to count the days to my birthday with challenges.
3 days before my birthday I did the three marker challenge, which you can wantch on Youtube ^^ 
I always let my Excel table decide which Copics I had to use, but I delete those I had used once from the list so I would not use the same marker twice.

-> Video

Two days before, I did the two marker challenge.

-> watch it here

Now it's only one day left and I did a one marker challenge. Because it is a bit boring to watch me colouring this in about three minutes :D I just show the picture:
I had to use the G000 Pale Green and I coloured a picture I drew before.

Mom and I doing COPIC Illustration

This is a collab I was doing with my mom ->her blog. I wanted her to try out COPIC markers so I drew a speedpaint Manga girl and printed two of them.
So this is the picture:

And this is what my mom was doing. For colouring with these markers the first time, she did quite a good job!

I was trying out someting new: I wanted to shade her hair with a colour which was nor just a shade darker neither of the same colour family. So for colouring I used my V05(Marigold) and for shading BV13(Hydrangea Blue) which is honestly more blue than violet. And it turned out very good, I really love this hairstyle. 

As you can see, I coloured areas of her coat in a leopard pattern. For this, I used my lightest skintone (E50 Egg Shell) for the underground. Then I lightened the middle of each area with my lightest yellow shade (Y000 Pale Lemon) and blended it with the E50. Where the light shined the most, I used a shining yellow (Y11 Pale Yellow) and blendet it again with the E50. I coloured in short flicking motions to express fur and let it dry. Then I made irregular dots with a brown shade (E18 Copper) and outined them with a black multiliner.

If you have any questions, you can ask me in the comments :)

Queens of cards: Copic illustrations

Today I want to show you my latest project: Inking and colouring the queens of spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs.
You can download and print the inked versions by following the links under the pictures (free)!
I drew these pictures for practising drawing lace, as you can see there's many lace on the royal dresses.

Queen of spades, inked

Free download
For me, the queen of spades is the most mysterious, so I gave her an eyepatch in form of a spade. 
For colouring I used these COPIC ciao markers: C-1 Cool Gray No. 1 for shading all white areas and blend the blue, B45 Smoky Blue for her eyes, hat, dress, gloves and fan, B24 Sky for shading the darker areas of the blue and Y11 Pale Yellow for all accessories.

Queen of spades, coloured

Queen of hearts, inked

Free download
In my opinion, the queen of hearts is a very romantic and passionated person. This is the reason I gave her very big curls and a staff.
For colouring I used these COPIC ciao markers: YR000 Silk for the skin, Y11 Pale Yellow for accessories, R14 Light Rouge for hair, gloves, dress and hearts, E18 Copper for shading the hair, B45 Smoky Blue for the eyes 
and also this COPIC sketch marker: E21 Baby Skin Pink for shading the skin.

Queen of hearts, coloured

Queen of diamonds, inked

Free download
 The queen of diamonds is the wise queen who has the most royal behaviour. That's why she stands very still. The diamonds are showing her royal, composed and gernerous character more than wealth.
I colored this picture with: YR000 Silk for the skin, E11 Bareley Beige for the lips, Y11 Pale Yellow for all golden areas, Y15 Cadmium Yellow for shading the Q, E21 Baby Skin Pink (COPIC sketch) for the hair, E18 Copper for shading the hair (hair blended with the colourless blender), Y000 Pale Lemon for the ruffles and the first layer of the dress, E50 Egg Shell for shading these areas, G000 Pale Green for the tissue and the second layer of the dress, YG11 Mignonette for every part which has gold on it, G02 Spectrum Green for all smaragds and G17 Forest Green for shading those. Her eyes are YG11 and shaded with G02.

Queen of diamonds, coloured

Queen of clubs, inked

Free download
The queen of clubs is the young queen, more like a princess. This is why she has opened hair and a very ... dress. The flower in her hand symbolizes her innocence, but the grave expression in her face shows that she's not naive.
I coloured her with: YR000, Y11 and Y15 for the hair, YR000 and E21 for the skin, V12 Pale Lilac for the first and second layer of the dress, V06 Lavender for shading it, V05 Marigold for the bow, the shades on the rose and the last layer of the dress, BV13 Hydrangea Blue for the 3rd layer of the dress and the bands, RV Pale Pink for her lips, all ruffles, the crown and the rose. As always, I used Y11 for all golden areas and I also gave her B45 Smoky Blue eyes.

Queen of clubs, coloured

For the gold I also used the gold Mitsubishi gel pen. Let me know which one is your favourite!
If you have any questions, don't be afraid of asking me in the comments below!