Pixels Emporium

another art trade. this was the first one i started and the second one i finished. its olewic_'s character on instagram.

i think its ok. again, the hair made me want to kill myself. i just dont know how to make it flowy or nice hahah. i think i should stop using a pixelated brush cause they come out looking so crunchy when its at a big size lmao.

a sort of "inspiration" for this were that sort of 2000s manga style shading that had been on my mind where they shade light colored skin with orange-ish hues. i quite like the look of those, but mine turned out more brown probably cause of my usual style loll. i also used yellow on the edges to made the transition smoother, as well as just cause it made it look more as if it was a fucked up photo of a manga cover and the yellow was a compressing artifact from the years of jpeging this image hypothetically went through. of course it doesnt look a lot like the source material i was drawing from, but i like what i tried to do nonetheless.

workin on the khaki shorts was fun. should have picked a more contrasting color to shade with, maybe used a yellower color to highlight parts to make it less flat but i enjoy doing tight clothing folds some of the time. the strings from the layer under i just gave up lol, was finished with the character and wanted to start on the background.

background was also fun to do. used the same paper texture as i did in art trade #1 but just overlayed it on top of a blue gradient. a copy of the character was flipped and inlarged and i put some screen or color dodge or whatever blend mode and shoved it in the back cause it resulted in pleasant colors. the flowers are all seperate ijmages i put in because i thought it look nice. biggest regret is probably making on eof the peonies orange--thought it would add nice contrast with the teal and blue, but it kinda just looks out of place, especially being at the edge. oh well, if i dont think about it too hard i dont care that much lololol

p.s. "63fruits" is just my instagram handle and i just put it in because it elavated the feel of the art i think. also i think it needed some space filler. the other text are just bladee lyrics from his song wett (water2) cause i wanted some text again LOLL

the second art trade i started and the first one i completed out of the three batch i did/am doing at the time of writing this (1 2 go!) character belongs to calamari_art on instagram (cause thats where i asked if anyone wanted to do uh the thing.)

i drew this on my like #3 or #2 visit to new york back 2 back withing like few weeks of each other then went to a bunch of other neighboring states, ~observing~ colleges through states till we finally got back home. i drew most of this in the fucking huge ass lexus my dad rented, sitting in the back cause its one of those massive ass cars where theres seats in the trunk. applaud me.

the guitar is definitely fucked up if you zoom in, especially the strings. i really dont know how like, guitars work. i went on like an adventure to figure out how electric guitar amps work. i remember seeing them always like, on the side's bottom??? but all of the references i had were of it they were like a oval thing where the cord connected to the middle of it, i think. anyone who plays guitars probably are laughing reading this.

shoutout to the shoes & pants, i had a painful yet fun time drawing them. i was going for a leathery texture, and i didnt have any references availble, so i just kinda guessed. i think it turned out ok though.

worst part (besides the guitar, btw dont zoom in on the strings) was the hair. i didnt know what the do with the lighting, and i struggled to get the bleached inner hair look right. if you look at it too long i think it becomes too obvious i gave up trying to make it work lolll

funnest part was definitely the background. going in i had a rough vision; a collage of tomatoes or something, but i turned out different but i dont hate it!! theyre all just random images i thought would fit. i wanted it to look confusing some parts, like it was a mystery amalgimation and you couldnt make out what parts were what, blend modes, etc. etc. but you can decipher the majority, halftoned tomato slices, poppies, and a random pattern thing that added a nice contrasting green and spontaneous teal. silly.

an entry for heartsynth_ on instagram (writing this in reverse order the art entries to the top's description were written out before this one, theres a lot of stuff for instagram idk in the brainrot era i guess)'s draw this in ur style challenge! was fun. this was partially drawn (namely the chibi, an 100% in car creation) in a car.

i had a pose in my head and i definetly.. drew it!! its not like, stunning anatomy work, but when was i ever about that lololol. i think the hand is quit nice tho.

rendering this went sluggishly, cause im stupiddd. did that thing where id choose a color hardly different from the base and just do the same stroke over and over again. i was in that stalling mood, sort of i guess. its very flat by my standards, but it look like 8 hours i think still. not that im not proud of it! still like it a lot i think. the hairs best described to be very strand-ly, i like it when i draw hair and it does that.

hate drawing buckles so a character whos outfit si basically just that kinda killed me, i had trouble mainly with the one of the chest cause i couldnt get the prespective correct. it still looks too.. up?? i guess, but its fine, ill live with it.

titling this "angel" because i just decided to write angel on the thing for aesthetic and space-filling purposes only, its not the characters name no. decorated it with butterfly images and blue stars to compliment the yellow hues. the background is just a faux chromatic aberration where i copied the character, shifted the hues, then placed it on different sides, maybe some distortion and mirrioring too i dont know did this too long ago to remember.

also decided to use a dot brush to add some form of "shading" for no reason at all, but i guess it looks cool!!

not a lot of inspiration i derrived for this, or any notes that arent just the process and thoughts, just wanted to draw this guy on the floor doing something and made it silly.s

a drawing i made while in a semi-style crisis art, basically a redraw of this image i found on.....pinterest...:

for the purposes of proper crediting, i did a very quick google skim/reverse image search to find the source of this image. the first result i saw was a 48 euro listing for a manga/magazine looking thing called Marmalade Boy; The Family Grows on some random spanish online market site, i think. It is drawn by Japanese artist Wataru Yoshizumi, who is also the author/artist of another manga called Ultra Maniac. This particular image is also used in the first volume of the Marmalade Boy series, it seems.

though while i was drawing this, i had no idea that there was a full version. i did notice that in the image i used as a reference there was a clear fade off, implying it was a page in a book, which was what inspired me to look for the og source anyways.

anyways, onto some actual comments on the drawing. its pretty lazy and not very polished, you can probably tell how rushed the clothing and bows are. my main focus was more on trying to do some fancy lighting on the face and hair. i notice a lot of mistakes; such as how the head is just a bit too big/long for the body, but im ok with it. i like other parts of it, how the warm skin contrasts with the blue, and i think the hair, while probably a bit thinner than the original, is pretty decent.

the background is a collage of fruits i found on pinterest once again. a part of me wishes i drew them myself, but then again i think that would literally destroy me lol. i vaguely follewed the placements of the fruits according to the image, but i added and adjusted as i pleased.

i had drawn another version of this image before this before restarting and drawing this version instead. it was a lot more harsh and controlled. for the shading, i kinda scribbled a bunch, this choice probably influenced by the fact that while i was drawing it, i was also making daily black bic pen portraits that i would literally scribble in a circular motion for the shading. it was probably more "impressive" than this, but i ditched it because it really did not feel like my style, and i wanted to make something true to myself. i still have a lot to work on artistically. anatomy, clothing folds, noses/mouths (fuck my life tbh), composition, hands, basically everything that could ever be done ever. but in the meantime, im happy with what i made.

PS: what is 'fruits in 2011'? i dont know, i thought it just sounded cool and fit with the art

an art piece birthed from my bordem and hatred of life during summer break; being bored with not much to do. the person in the middle is supposed to be a sort of representation of me, but not exactly me. my """pseudo-self""" is surrounded by screens/technology, emblematic of the shit ton of time i have spent on my computer, phone, etc. because of my boredem. the blue color palette is more accidental, but i see it as in accidental nod to the exposure of blue screens im experiencing because of my constant attachment to technology. a lot of the content on the screens are just random things that i didnt really think twice about, pulled from vague memories; though some are based of of experiences, frustrations, and feelings.

for example, the half-broken monitor with the angel popping out and the "out of order" sticky note on top is supposed to be loosely inspired by js paint. i remember back when i was still in school, i would always go on their, particularly in spanish where i got work done quickly, and just draw stuff. the glitched/broken screen effect is inspired by this vivid memory of someone from class with a really fucked up computer, where it was huge black mass with a sort of chromatic abbrevation on the edge of it. the marquee tag on the monitor next to the dragon sprawled out sortof onto the castle were added cause i remember being really tired of editing my website and for some reason, frustrated with a marquee effect i was trying to do. not sure anyone remembers this, but i used to have that iconic dvd sreensaver on my homepage (cause i thought it was funny and needed filler). i was literally just copy pasting code for a bouncing, up-and-down marquee i found on mozilla. a couple days, maybe even a few weeks go by, and i totally forget how the code's supposed to work, and i thought it was weird how i had a marquee within a marquee (thats at least how i think how the code was set up) an replaced it with the good ol' div. this made the dvd logo wrap around the screen and restart or something to that effect, instead of bouncing off. i was already jaded from sitting in my dad's room (where my computer is housed, i live weirdly) and editing my website for like 100 years. i was so frustrated, almost defeated, that i either got off to work on this artwork or i flat out just deleted it from my website. anywho, its gone now, and unless i want to remake it one day, its history, only to be remembered by those who read this description.

i realize i can basically break down my entire thought process/the art's entire background while writing this description. im not limited or pressured to write a stupid little short description to capture the the eyes of a scrolling hand's short lived attention, only to be forgotten a couple more flicks down the feed like in instagram (im not sure that fancy writing thing i did there worked, but oh well.) but im lazy and fuck. maybe ill return to this a later time and give the full lore breakdown. im pretty sure no one would read it though.