The Groovy Den

Long time no see. unfortanetely because of my wrist inflamation, no inspiration and the scolding hot climate in italy i'm not drawing much lately. I hope to get back at it eventually, but i'm sure it won't be like in past anymore. I just don't have all that energy anymore.

Instagram algorithm knows me and showed me some photos from an all women japanese theatre company called Takarazuka Revue, and god knows I'm a big sucker for a woman in elegant men clothing.. perfection (✿◡‿◡)

all the photos of the main couple actressess dynamic made me think so much of my ocs Hitomi and Akai and I knew I had to redraw at least one! (even if I wanted to redraw them all because thy're beautiful photos and amazing costumes) those actresses are just. so. beautiful and cool.

A draw I made of my three roleplay OCs Gail Le Lay, Süleyman Za'atar and Aleksandrya Athanasia Ambrož, that I like to call all together Disagio Siblings (disagio meaning awkwardness, as this three are quite problematic each own in their unique way).

The idea was to focus on my weak point, inking, and try my best to create something decent without using color, which is my comfort zone, and try different techniques. I think I did... well. It's not excellent. My lineart is always quite messy and the crosshatching is not clean at all. I also wanted to use stipling to shade the characters' faces, but it was coming out horrible so I gave up. I though this was going to be quite tedious process as I don't like inking, but in the end as I was in the zone it wasn't so bad. Still, I prefer much more rendering with colors. They're amazing to cover up all my mistakes.

« Oh yes ma'am the heart is definetely the most delicious part of the human, What a shame they only have one each, isn't it? Hehehe.. what? suffer? Oh no, ma'am, absolutely not! Human farming is completely ethical, without any kind of cruelty! They live a wonderful life without any problems, and when they're fat enough and the time comes… well, bang, it's just a moment and they don't feel any pain! Hehe, I wish I could have a life as wonderful as that, instead of huffing and puffing all day here..! Hehe.... what? fingers? Of course, ma'am, with or without nails? »

It's been a long time since i've drawn a more finished and polished illustration. In the past months i've been just sketching in my sketchbook, and not very frequently, so I knew I'd be pretty rusty... but this was truly a humbling experience. Wanting to do such a complex, detailed illustration with some perspective too was definitely not a good idea. I struggled and it took me about five days of work.

The inspiration for this illustration came from Caio Yo, one of my favorite artists on Instagram. His subjects are very different from mine, definitely less gruesome, but I really admire the way he manages to create small environments, simple yet complete and fascinating, often using isometric perspective. I'll include a couple of his illustrations at the end to make sure I understand what I mean. In general, I love his style, his use of color, everything. But whenever I create an environment, I tend to add too much detail, making the scene chaotic and disorganized. The final products are often very different from how I imagined the drawing in my head.

ᗷOᑌᑎTIᖴᑌᒪ ᔕᑭᗩᑕE

An illustration based on a quick draw I made for Inktober in 2017, which in turn is based on a draw I made in middle school, inspired by a videogame art design that I don't remember the name. Inspiration is cyclical sometimes.I always have many ideas and not much time for them unfortunately.

If I say myself this illustration is quite good and I'm proud of it. I tried multiple times to draw outer space at this point and I feel like this is the best attempt I made so far.I had a very good NASA photo for reference, it helped me somewhat. It was a fun one that I had in my head for a while and I'm happy I finally had to put on paper.

An illustration of my oC Akai. I'm not drawing much as for now mostly beacause i'm doing other things and my wrist inflammation is reutrning (at this point it's obvious it will never really go away.) so I did something more simple. My OCs Akai and Hitomi are my most favourite to draw because they're quite colorful and have a slick design so I feel i return to them when I'm not sure what to draw.

A draw for the new year, five days late, not too bad.

I just received a lovely package from the even more lovely OoAnBuOo, wich contained, amoong many others goods, some art materials, most notably a set of six faber castell polychromos colored pencils. I already own a couple of them I bought individually at the art shop and they're EXPENSIVE but very good, so i got excited, also because colored pencils are my favourite art material. I challenged myself to draw something using the material provided (and a pencils and eraser of mine).

I knew that it would been challenging so I opted for a subject which had all the colors provided in the set, and to celebrate the year of the snake I wanted to draw a african bush viper, gorgeus animals whish perfectly fitted the theme and colors. The polychromos are so good at blending and on my most beloved taned paper they're just so smooth to use. Colored pencils are a slow medium that requires patience, as the correct way is to layer them many, many times. this colored pencils are so pigmented and yummy. love them. I'm gonna treasure them for a long time I think.

Also in the package there were some liquitex acrylic markers in neon colors, which are something different from me, as I don't use neon colors that much but they were nice to use. But I knew that neon and highlighters don't work at all with the scanner, so I had to take photos, and I suck at taking photos. meh.

No use crying over spilled tears.

Because the problem isn't so much the mistakes you made, but the time you wasted crying about them.

this illustration has a cool concept, but a terrible execution. This draw SUCKS! there are so many things I'm unhappy about and doesn't look very much as I pictured it in my mind. But I worked on it so i'm gonna post it again because I really like the basic idea.

Savory Kaijūs

Nagamaki (o Shenlonigiri) VS Octoramen (o Ramenpus)

A battle of titans! probably that's what happens in my stomach after I went to all you can eat japanese restaurant.

V - The Royal Magus

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"What are you willing to sacrifice to gain the power you think you deserve? What limits are you prepared to surpass, what laws to violate in order to wander into uncharted territories, in order to become something completely different and formidable? You know the price and you're foolishly eager to pay it. In the end, it is not so important to have lost some piece, or completely yourself when you think you are invincible."

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Final piece for Vintagetober! I know I'm always critical with my drawings but this one it's definetely the weakest of the bunch. The proportion are very off. for some reason I really didn't saw the mistakes until I was at the final touches. I fell like the sketch was actually good but something went wrong during inking.

and the concept it's not super original either. While with the others pieces I thought of a more deep meaning to the images portrayed, this one it's kind of literal with the "magic/ power comes always with a price " trope that at this point it's oh so used in fantasy media. yeah that's it. power=cost. predictable but I didn't had any other ideas.

The only positive note is that I went for some diversity and tried an asian protagonist, I feel like in the people that I draw there's some diversity already, but I could do more, especially with body types and race. there's so much variety of interesting human beings and so little representation sometimes.

IV - The Court Jester

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"What are you willing to sacrifice to satisfy the others? Pleasing everyone is possible if you know how to wear and change many different masks, but eventually you might forget what your original face looked like. In the end, you don't need to know yourself if you'll always have the favor of others."

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We're close to the end with Vintagetober! The Court Jester, I actually didn't liked my lineart, I thought in general was quite a weak concept compared to the others, but after coloring it I'm so much more happy with it! I like how delicate it came out, it looks both pastel and desaturated. Also even if it's simple I really like the background.

The concept is esay as I said, and it's about hiding your true self and putting on a mask specifically to appease the people around you, being your "friends", colleagues, society etc. This situation can happen in many ways, like a neurodivergent that tries to act like a neurotypical, passing for non cishet people, or just trying to be like someone that you're not when you met new people. It's draining, but sometimes necesary unfortunately.

III - The Golden Heir

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"What are you willing to sacrifice to make your truth being spoken? Will you continue to reflect the lights of those that came before you, or will you ignite your own very flame, raise your voice so it will be heard by everyone at last? In the end, some stars are made to die in the oblivion of a dark hole, for even brighter new ones to born and shine trough"

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Week three of Vintagetober is the golden heir. Lots of warm colors here. I like how rusty looking the cape come out, it was definetely a happy accident thought ahah.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. So for the golden heir I immediately thought of a prince, or some kind of powerful figure that gets on the throne after their parents dying. I imagine the parent being so loved by the people that they reigned over, that their presence was warm, bright and sometimes overwhelming like the sun. The heir doesn't shine of his own light, but like a mirror or a satellite only reflects what was their parent light.

The heir has to make a choice: to continue to be only a reflection of what their parents were, and so just emulate and try his best to do like their parents would, or breaking this condition and making their own voice came trough.

With this idea, the first image that came in my mind was "someone ripping their vocal cords and showing them to everyone as to say: see, that's my own voice! that's my truth!" What a genius I am! what an artist ! of course I know nothing of anatomy, and so I thought that vocal cords are like.. tubes in our throat. easy to draw. well not. thy're not funny tubes in out throat. thy're like weird stuff membrane that open and close to make sounds. huh. not easy to draw. in the end I opted for an exposed throat area and the heir just indicating it. I think is not as a clear image as the one I thought. so the lesson is, if you want to draw human body stuff you must know your anatomy... at least a little bit! Did I learn my lesson? No. never. of course no.

II - The Celestial Knight

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"What are thou willing to sacrifice to respect all weaknesses, and constitute thyself as the defender of them ?  shalt thou be generous and give largesses to everyone, in cost of thy heart, exposed and undefended in front of the world's cruelty ? Be aware, because thy same sword you wield to guard thine neighbor could be the one that will cause thou the bloodiest of wounds."

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The celestial knight, the second prompt, gave me some troubles. it was the only one for that I hadn't a clear concept in my mind ( when I feel inspired to draw something I have already a very clear image in my head of what it's gonna look which is both a curse and a blessing). In the end I thought about how a knight should be an emblem of sacrifice to "protect the innocent" as stated by the code of chivalry. I have to say that even if I talk about protection, I think about it more like a metaphor for altruism in general, event in the smaller things.

Generosity and altruism are definetely rare traits in nowadays society and lifestyle, because of how self centered and individualistic we've becomed, so I feel that genuine altruist people seems very special... but also destined to be disappointed and sometime even betrayed in their kindness. it's a pity, but as a very selfish person myself it's something I don't fully understand. It definetely takes a great strenght to be kind in these days.

I - The Swan Princess

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"What are you willing to sacrifice to look lithe and exquisite in every movement, even when you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders pulling you down? Would you obediently empty yourself, giving up everything that keeps your cheeks fresh and rosy ? In the end, they won't see your pallor under the spotlight."

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The first prompt is the swan princess, and of course I immediatly thought about the swan lake and ballerinas. I'm quite the simple mind in the end. The Sacrifice here would be the hours and energies put in the training, that must be quite a hard workout to keep the physical shape to be able to look so graceful and seem that every movement costs no effort at all. But of course like any type of discipline at a high or competitive level, the efforts can become unhealthy and toxic under the pressure to stay perfect and graceful.

Now it's important to not paint everyone with the same brush of course. I don't want to incentivate stereotypes with my art. Also these illustration are to be seen as metaphors. I'm sure the vast majority of ballet dancers and athlets are perfectly healthy people. That being said, when I was searching for references, I've seen a lot of very, very skinny ballet dancers...

Please read this 🔽🔽🔽 . .

October is here! You know what it means right? Art challenge! Last year I did OCtober and literally destroyed my wrist in the process so this year I wanted to take it easier and do Vintagetober by Resaa.art (that you should check out, she's one of the few digital artist I follow and she's incredible).

As you can see it's actually the 2022 prompt list, since there isn't a 2024 one but also I had my eyes on this list for forever now, and ims so excited to finally do it! The prompts filled me with inspiration, also Resaa art did a mood board inspiration for each of them that helped me a lot. I decided add for my own style and enjoyment a theme to connect all of the prompts which will be: SACRIFICE

I wanted to do this pre post also to put a ⚠️⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING!!! ⚠️⚠️ (It would be useless to put it under the posts since you see the picture before reading what's under it and sometimes people don't read at all) That future posts will contain eating disorder hints, blood, wounds, internal organs and skin peeled imagery. Now, it will quite stylized (I'm not good with realism anyway) but still, if those things impress you or you don't want to see them feel free to unfollow me or block my posts for October. Your safety it's the most important thing.

𝕷𝖆 𝕸𝖔𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖊 - ??? 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖂𝖎𝖋𝖊 - ???