m i k k a p i

My piece for the @bnhavillaintriozine with some color tweaks from the original ~ Much love to everyone on the team!

Side note, Horikoshi is a crazy dude for creating a character with this many hands lmao

A scattered dream that's like a far-off memory

My piece for the @yoifantasyzine ~ Totally inspired by Ghibli’s wonderful style! I wish I could have done it a little more justice in retrospect but a fun project nonetheless. Big thank you to the entire zine crew <3

A space AU I just can’t seem to let go of yet.

Follow me on insta! https://www.instagram.com/mikkapi/?hl=en

Hello! Sorry for the extremely late reply. Thanks for asking!

I totally relate to how you feel, in fact it’s something that I still struggle with regularly. Often times when I want to start a big project I become overwhelmed by all the things that I think I DON’T know and end up losing the feeling of wanting to do it in the first place. 

Hey! Thanks for asking and so sorry for the late reply, I’m on and off this site nowadays. 

I’ve gotten this question a lot and I can say with confidence Yusuke Murata absolutely. Murata is the artist for my number one favorite manga ever, which is Eyeshield 21! He has been my idol for years and I always love sneaking in references to that series when I can.

A couple older pieces I did for Yuri K. centric zines! Tried two different versions of shonen manga style. Looking at it again now, it really doesn’t look like YOI at all does it? Hahahaha

Also, sorry for the inactivity! Life is still being quite a rollercoaster. 2018 has been going by super fast.

Hello! Yes, I have [email protected]

Ahhh thank you so much, I still have so much to learn though. I went to the University of Washington and graduated with an art degree :) I’m a very distracted person so I honestly don’t draw as often as I should, but I will always recommend that you draw at least SOMETHING every day. Seriously anything you want. It’s just good to always exercise your creative brain!

Saw Eiji’s outfit in episode 3 and this is what happened.

Ash is a pretty awesome character. I’m still warming up to the story and the other main characters, but so far Banana Fish has been interesting to watch every week huhu

Preview of my piece for @yoifantasyzine !

Had a lot of fun working with the super amazing team for this zine dedicated to both fantasy and Yuri on Ice. Check it out if you’re interested! :) Pre-orders open August 1st.

Hey! So sorry for the late response! Lighting is super tricky I agree. I’m still not very good at it (especially without reference), but it was super helpful to do this exercise when I was taking online classes at CGMA:

Preview of the piece I did for a My Hero Academia zine: @bnhavillaintriozine

Lots of wonderful artists and writers were a part of it! Please check it out if you’re interested. Here’s the store: http://bnhavillaintriozine.tumblr.com/store

Hello thank you so much for asking :) I’ve been attempting to fine tune/finalize their designs more lately! Adding more detail. Maybe one day I’ll be able to add them to my portfolio. Here’s Dreamer reworked a bit: 

Hey Anon! I totally feel you, to be honest I am in the exact same boat. I feel 150% confident with line art but once I have to go in for color, suddenly the whole drawing looks off. I’m not sure I can give you the advice you need since I don’t have any examples of your work and I am also not so great with color, but I can definitely give you some tips on what I’ve learned so far! <3

When I want to do a drawing with background I usually start out with a quick sketch of the overall composition, making sure it looks appealing enough. I keep in mind the local (natural) color of everything I sketched, such as clothes, hair, buildings etc. From there I try to figure out the lighting, such as: what is the light source and what direction is it coming from. The light is what affects the color palette of the scene, so it’s always important for me to figure that out first (unless I want the drawing to ignore light and shadow, then I’d only worry about picking appealing colors that sit well next to each other). 

I’ve blabbered about this before bahaha but I found that my coloring has improved after better understanding how color changes under the influence of different light sources. Using photo and real life references helps so much! Cold source light (blue, moonlight) = cold highlights and warmer shadows. Warm source light (orange, sunlight) = warm highlights and cooler shadows. Once I’ve sorted out the “temperature” of the light source, that’s when I go in and start blocking in the color based on both the object’s local color and where the light is hitting it and where shadows are created. This is done with an opaque brush though, because I don’t want the canvas to influence my color choice. After everything has been sketched in I start going in for cleanup and blending with a more transparent brush, which gives a softer transition between the light and shadow. The harsher the light, the less transition and the bigger the contrast. If it’s overcast, the shadows become very subdued and you’d want the colors to look a lot less saturated. Here’s a cup example of the color process with a strong warm and low light source:

Hello! Thank you so much <3 Depending on how complex the background is it’s honestly either one layer or TOO MANY layers hahaha! If it’s a nature based background, such as the sky or a forest or a beach, I usually sketch and then detail all on one layer. If it’s more geometric like a city scape or a room then I start going overboard on layers to help me draw “behind” something or “in front” without having to worry about messing anything up haha.