Hakuouki Fans, Now That Is Is September, There Are Two Dates You Need To Keep In Mind:

Hakuouki fans, now that is is September, there are two dates you need to keep in mind:

September 18th: Hakuouki's 16th anniversary

September 25th: Hakuouki Shinkai's 9th anniversary + bluray release of Musical Hakuouki Shinkai Hijikata Toshizou hen

The Japanese fandom will be celebrating, so don't hesitate to join them!

I was watching Schindler's List (one of my favorite movies 💖), when I had to stop the movie to take care of some business. When I came back, I noticed that I had paused it at the moment where Oskar Schindler gives his gold watch to Itzhak Stern for him to use as a bribe in order to get an elderly couple (the Perlmans) added to the list. 📝✍

This isn't only a pivotal moment in the film (and in the true story that inspired it as well 🕯️), but it also involves my favorite character (Itzhak Stern, played masterfully by Sir Ben Kingsley 👏), and some exquisite cinematography (just look at that camera work and lighting! 🎥✨) that inspired me to try to paint it in my beloved Paint Tool SAI. 🖌️

The painting took about 50 hours and was done with 1 medium/large flat brush, 1 small round/bristle brush (both with chalk texture to make them look more realistic and less "digital" 😉), and 1 very large water/blur brush (which was only used for the background, as I didn't want to blur the character so that the painting would look more traditional and less "photographic" than some of my previous works 👀).

The hardest part to paint was Itzhak's forehead and, to my great surprise, the easiest was the glasses! Which surprised me since it's the first time I've painted a realistic portrait of someone wearing them, haha. 👓🤭

Here's the Step by Step Tutorial! 😉👍 (Step 1: Sketch. Step 2: Lineart. Step 3: Character + Lineart Coloring. Step 4: Decided to take the coloring further by painting over the lineart ✍✨).

I thought of drawing a retro anime style rendition of Vincent Van Gogh's (my favorite artist ever! 🎨🌻) painting titled "Portrait of a Woman with Red Ribbon" (1885) as a warm up, and I liked the result so much that I decided to step out of my comfort zone and color it in a painterly style different from my usual cel shading one! 👀✨ It's awesome when these kind of experimental artworks turn out the way you want them to, haha.

Day 18: "Zombie", featuring Toudou Heisuke! 🌸 (Hakuouki).

I know Heisuke isn't a literal zombie but some kind of vampire, lol, but I plan to draw another character for the "Vampire" prompt and, since Heisuke is literally brought back to life as a monster that goes berserk and tries to eat humans, I think he counts as a metaphorical zombie, haha! 🧟‍♂️

New PFP, Who Dis? 👀 It's been 3 years since I last changed my profile pic, so I decided to switch the Yomi one from this 2021 Terranigma artwork, for the Tani Sanjuro (Hakuouki OC) portrait I recently posted. 👍

Both of them have the same kind of sneaky, sarcastic, cocky, know-it-all, but ultimately a jerk with a heart of gold personality, haha. 🤭 These types of characters tend to be the most fun for me to write, so seeing them in my PFP causes me to feel quite inspired to work on my stories! ✍💖

I'm so glad this artwork has surpassed 1000 notes! 🥰 As a thank you, I'll explain the symbolic meaning behind some of the elements in this piece:

🌠The child version of Cloud (and, therefore, "The Real Cloud") represents his shared childhood with Tifa.

⚔️The translucent sword made of ghostly mako glow represents Zack's heroic legacy.

🌻 The yellow flowers he's standing on represent his connection to Aerith and the planet.

☄️🦅And the combo of the meteorite plus the eagle flying high through the flaming sky represents Sephiroth!

Cloud has been one of my favorite JRPG heroes since ages ago! He's such a complex, deep, and relatable character, so I went out of my way to portray his powerful spirit in a single image! 👏💖