Indeed, some weekends are worth leaving the house for!

For once, the weather was nice, the economy was (supposedly) picking up and EirtaKon was happening! For those not aware, EirtaKon is the largest Anime convention in Ireland. Its roots go deep down to 2005 with as much as 200 attendees. Its root do go deep indeed but it’s trunk rises proudly upwards with more than 1200 attendees in 2010.

I had the pleasure to attend (briefly) after a couple of years of being absent and I have to say I was completely amazed at what I was witnessing. The venue was full and buzzing with excitement, fun and banter. It was massive, positive and alive.

The Artist Alley was quite a sight too. Many, many artists were gathered having fun, conversing with one another, showing, trading, selling. Total fun and relaxed buzz in the air.

Hell, I even bought a Lori fanart to mark the occasion!

I don’t know the artist’s name so I cannot credit her with it. If someone knows her, please enlighten me!

Otherwise, I managed to grab some awesome swag! Mugs, hoodies, hats, posters, t-shirts… Fantastic stuff. I felt spoiled.

Mark “MarkMI6” has done an awesome job at entertaining us as well as raising awareness of the Kon (needless to say, the entire staff has made a grand job of it). We even came to an arrangement for one of the banners. Lori ended up proudly advertised on biiiiig banners! And one of them happens to be in my possession. Super chuffed with that. Like I unlocked an achievement somehow.

 Anyway, just to wrap this up. EirtaKon is happening again this year. When: November 9th – 11th Where: The Helix, DCU Don’t miss out. Early bird pre-reg tickets are 25€ Go get some!

So after a long year hiatus, I’m posting again.

Lots of things have happened over the past year (moved in with my girl, grandmother having a stroke, etc.. ) but I think I’m getting back into a routine where I’m finding my marks. So I’ll try to keep the art and post count going.

Following the yearly tradition, and with EirtaKon gearing up for another outstanding opus, you’ll find below this year’s art for Lori, the convention’s mascot.

She underwent a design overhaul.

Some might think it’s a bit risky and they might be right. However, as the Kon evolves so must its mascot.

I initially explored the idea of an evil twin. Cliché and overdone but I wanted to give Lora a more gothic look.

But this just wasn’t going to fly. Yet.

Depending on how EirtaKon evolves, we might explore this avenue later.

This year, Mark explained to me that the committee was looking for something iconic. We settled on the cover from the Ghost In The Shell manga Volume 1.

Now I just had to figure out how to redesign Lori. I went through many different iteration of the character, exploring the idea of new haircuts, body proportions, etc… In the end I realised that I couldn’t completely change her. People identify Lori to EirtaKon because of 2 elements: the colour palette and her crazy puffy hair. This needed to be left untouched. So I tweaked the body proportion mostly and her look.

After doing this sketch I realised that this was the direction I wanted follow, in terms of proportion and look. It just felt right.

Eventually, combining everything, the final piece turned out pretty ok.

Looking back, I would want to make the EirtaKon logo better. Refine it to have it closer to Masamune Shirow’s style in the manga in terms of effects. But it’s done now and I’m quite happy with the result. I hope the Kon-goers will be too…

For posterity’s sake, I’m compiling the different sketches for a project that MarkMI6 from the EirtaKon community is finalizing.

The EirtaKon Beer.

These are the initial designs I sketched out:

Although I had some previous sketches done, I started it all over this weekend.

I thought that going with the ol’ vixen pose is not specifically something I’d wish to see on a beer bottle but rather, something with more punch. Something with more attitude. Hence this final, straight forward, “fuck you” sticker.

I’ll update this post when/if I get pictures of the final product.

Following up on this entry, I’m adding a proper walk-through on the different stages of the making of this year’s Lori.

This year, the only guideline I received was: “We discussed it at a meeting at the start of the year, the idea of her in a shonen pose, looking pretty menacing and angry. But it’s always really up to you“.

So after trying out a few design sketches, this is what I thought had the best mix of action, pose and bad-assery. Lori is getting ready for another swing while maintaining a defensive stance. Calm, focused and not too aggressive.

This is the chosen design sketch:

She’s changed from here on out. The proper pencil sketch became the base of the different stages that followed: ink, streamlining and colouring.

I noticed that in the pencil sketch, the eyes aren’t lined up and looking in the desired direction properly. Modified in the inked stage.

The inking has been done by hand, scanned, cleaned up and then traced to vector.

This makes the picture to be very clean and it also gets rid of impurities that may still be hanging around the scan.

I started the colouring by adding shadows as a base to define the light source.

I followed up by filling in the base colours – Orange, white, green.

The highlights came last.

This gif gives you an idea of the progression of the applied shadows, then the applied highlights, how they work on a black background and how they applied on the final composition.

Click to zoom on the final revision.

Floor shadow and after effects added in at the end.

Some early Lori 2010 rough sketches.

After touching base with the EirtaKon folks and exchanging a few comments back and forth, I was told she was supposed to have a more action orientated pose. I’m more than happy to oblige

So I thought that a “Sword Master” knight in a attacking pose would suit.

UPDATE:

Inked sketch:

Concept sketch:

Proper sketch:

Modified Helm:

I also thought that a Cyber/Tech “Gun Master” could be fun to do as well. But we fear people might not recognize her:

Concept sketch:

And here’s a little Lori variant :p

More sketches from diverse work activities. I really hope my manager understands sketching during meetings helps me focus on what’s being talked about, rather than having my eyes wander about..

I also wonder why I always make my short haired girls so serious. What’s up with that?

The world football cup. I love it. Especially since Switzerland is in it. They won’t go too far mind you but for us, our highlight was beating Spain. Shocker!

Anyway, the best thing about the world cup is the proliferation of all sorts of fun material over the web. Anecdotes, animated .gifs, youtube clips, comic strips and…. nakedness!

Straight from the master himself, Petter Hegre, comes a great set of 32 pictures representing all the participating countries of the world cup. And in High resolution too. Hegre-Art.com is the personal works of award winning photographer Petter Hegre. Hegre-Art.com is the highest ranked fine art nude photography site in the world. Created to bring superior quality nude photography to the internet, Hegre-Art.com showcases films and photos of the most beautiful naked girls found anywhere on-line.

If you feel like downloading them, the pack will be available until the end of the world cup: World Cup Girls from Hegre

What you get in the pack but at high resolution:

[Show as slideshow]

Enjoy!

So after this nonsensical cute-anime-Akuma fun and more other more serious Akuma sketches, time to retreat to something nicer on the eye.

Just some pure ol’ random female sketches.

I was trying to get a nice tone on the first one. Lots of cross-hatchings for depth and a little bit of normal shading.

Those two came out out of some random ecchi picture found on the web. Naked with helms on. Wanted to try.

….

Ok, I lied.

Here’s another female version of Akuma.

More Akuma sketches.

I just must draw more of him until I can get him just right. It’s not that easy to get the perfect “mean-furious-stoic-constipated” look. Years spent in a dojo just doesn’t prepare you for this type of facial training!

For those curious about the Ansatsuken, here’s Wiki’s explanation:

Ansatsuken (暗殺拳, literally “assassination fist”) is a Japanese neologism used frequently in fictional works to describe any martial art style or fighting technique that has been developed with the purpose of killing an opponent. The term satsujinken (殺人拳, literally “murderer fist”) is used interchangeably as well.

Very interesting question, I’m glad you asked.

Well, I think it wouldn’t be that pretty. I mean, the character doesn’t lend itself well to this concept. See for yourself.

And to answer this very important question, I took every precautionary step to ensure I could conduct this experiment without hurting anyone. Rest assured, protective goggles, adequate clothing and fire extinguishers were used to pursue this test. Also, the following points and ingredients have been added:

• Big eyes – check
• Big tits – check
• Overall cute look – check

I’m still very much bemused by this concept – ha! It really, really does not fit the “assassin fist” wielding ominous character from street fighter