Sketch of the Day: The Great Cake Malfunction

kamiko cake malfunction color half 579x782 Sketch of the Day: The Great Cake Malfunction this mortal coil sketch of the day photoshop painting kamiko

Cake Malfunction

It’s sad when your cake malfunctions by falling to the ground rendering it inedible. Well, I guess you could scoop it up and shove it in your face, but who wants that?

Obviously, this is a little more than a sketch of the day. Here’s the original, which actually was a sketch:

Kamiko Cake Malfunction Sketch of the Day: The Great Cake Malfunction this mortal coil sketch of the day photoshop painting kamiko

Kamiko has a cake malfunction.

I started inking it at some point and came up with the final lineart and couldn’t leave it be, so I decided to color it. It’s a far cry from the usual stuff I draw for This Mortal Coil. Usually all of it looks like this:

kamisama 819x1024 Sketch of the Day: The Great Cake Malfunction this mortal coil sketch of the day photoshop painting kamiko

High contrast image of my character Kamiko

This Mortal Coil was a comic idea I came up with early last year. The pitch: Takahashi Natsumi dies and becomes a god through a loophole written into a contract she signed with God when He granted her a mortal life. I like the high contrast stuff Frank Miller did with Sin City and a lot of the heavily inked comic work. Of course the Dao is also rendered in white and black, since this comic was/is supposed to be somewhat of a discussion about spirituality and mortality, I liked the idea of rendering it in high contrast. I’m not leaving that format behind. When I continue the comic, I want to keep it as two colors. The new painting I did, I wanted to render her in color and fully cel-shaded just for fun. No point if you don’t have fun with your creations, right? I also chibi-fied her for the simple reason that it looks cute.

BTW, you can also check this painting out on dA along with a lot more of my artwork.

Anime Figure: Diabolus Inclinatus

Gallery

This gallery contains 25 photos.

Even if her bewbs do poke out at you, her sex appeal isn’t so much her ample bust but rather her expression and body language. Her pointed-inward toes suggests she’s embarrassed. Maybe wearing next to nothing wasn’t the best of ideas. Her eyes, based on how you look at her seem to beckon you closer or makes her seem a bit fearful and hesitant. Maybe it’s a ploy. Will she be naughty or nice? You won’t know until you’re within her grasp and then it’ll be too late. Continue reading

Sketch of the Day: Yumi-sama

yumisama 579x325 Sketch of the Day: Yumi sama yumi fukuzawa sketch of the day photoshop marimite maria sama ga miteru Anime

Yumi-sama

Fukuzawa Yumi from Maria-sama ga Miteru. Surprisingly, Maria-sama ga Miteru (a.k.a. Marimite) is one of my favorite animes that I’ve seen in the past couple of years. It’s a little bit over-dramatic at times. Usually the characters are elegant and cordial. The whole cast of girls minus Yumi seem completely unapproachable when we first meet them. They’re head of the student council, they’ve got stuffy french-y titles, seemingly high-and-mighty attitudes, and are looked upon as goddesses by the student body. In their school’s little circle of intrigue, they are the celebrities, but as each episode passes we get to learn a little more about each of the girls and by the end they seem like fairly decent, likable characters. There’s not much of a story or an antagonist to drive conflict, but that’s fine. It’s splice-of-life at it’s finest — soothing and relaxing (with moments of melodrama) — and Yumi is the chief narrator.

If you’re interested the series is done. It’s four seasons long — and I haven’t heard of a fifth season — and started in an age when 4:3 standard def was still the norm for television shows. The DVD sets come in only one flavor: subtitled, which is fine by me since I’ve come to enjoy the Japanese cast’s voice acting. The artwork’s a bit hit or miss. There’s a lot of emphasis placed on drawing eyes. Some of the characters you can tell just by looking at the eyes. Some of the eyes, some of the time, can be pretty freaky looking too, but they’re painted like windows so that you can peer into the depths of their souls.

In the story, Yumi is a student at an all girls school called Lillian Academy. They have a tradition where a junior takes a freshman under her wing to teach her proper values. Yumi ends up the imouto (younger sister) to Sachiko after some hesitation. Some fans seem to dislike Yumi but I don’t. She’s a bit dense at times. She seems to have skills, but they seem to only surround winning the approval of her “older sister,” Sachiko. She’s often needy and clingy, lost in thought, and sometimes passive aggressive or jealous. There’s nothing special about her. She won’t save the world, but she’s there for Sachiko when she needs her. Over the four seasons, she seems to learn and overcome her shortcomings in her own goofy ways to become  an older sister herself.