REIQ’s Chillout Space

Interview in the Osecon 2009 in Spanish.

I’m proud to be able to post here the work done for the tutorial Paint like Anime for the Corel painter Magazine issue 31, I always wanted to do something like this, it was a longed goal I wanted to achieve and I finally made it, I remember me grabbing the magazine before and saying to myself, wouldn’t be great to be in the cover? well I did it! the tutorial explain step by step all the process done to create this image, and some techniques to draw Anime facial expressions it was a lot of fun and I learn so many things doing it specially in the writing area, never before I had to written about how I work, this piece is somehow different from the usual artwork I do, so if you want to get some nice tips get the magazine! is out now!

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Issue 31
Paint like Anime
Discover the art of Japanese animation and learn to draw it.

Painter 11.

I’ve been using Painter for along time and rarely update it until I think it’s the right time, I probably do it every two or three versions, anyway I was stuck to my Painter 9.5 for almost 3 years and decided it was time for a change when I saw the promo of the 15% discount for the software in Deviantart, So I bought it, knowing after viewing a few reviews that they enhanced the speed and that size of the color wheel could be increased.

I bought the download version as I think it will be better in the long term, anyway today I spent all day painting the weekly Jigglygirls update and I went through the process of adapting and learning again how to handle the workflow, I was impressed by the load time but then disappointed by the slower it was to move around the canvas, completely lagging and even worse rotating the canvas.

then I conducted a little research to get it work properly, and I did it by turning off a few options in the preferences menu, like enhancing the brush ghosting and reducing the quality of the zoomed out view. Once I did this I could enjoy the felling of the brushes, much better the response using a Cintiq 12WX, also changing the pen’s nib helped this, another aspect improved is the color profile management as it resembles more to photoshop so I don’t have to spend a lot of time finding the best color profile to use.

In general I could say it’s a good release but there’s still a lot of things missing like the shortcut to merge layers as you work, and a better use of the Lazo tool, also a better way to increase the brush size is mandatory for future updates, hope Corel improve this in the future, so If you want to upgrade your Painter it’s a good idea if you have the 9.5 or previous versions, if not wait a little longer.

the trial version is online in the official Corel website, Here!

Now Corel pay me for doing this review! LOL.

Finally I got my copy of Street fighter and I’ve been playing when I got a spare time, and it’s fu**ing hard, I went online and I got my ass kicked! tricky to pull out super combos and supers, but believe me I’m enjoying playing as Chun-li! >_< Tights almighty tights! *heads back to practice mode!*

That’s right guys, I’m going to stop selling prints on my shop as I’ll be moving from London soon, also the shop it’s time consuming, so I decided to sell all the prints I have currently as print packs at a really low price compared of what a single one used to cost, no worries I’ll start selling my work on other websites dedicated to this businnes but that will mean no more signed prints and no extra prints that I usually send, I’ll have limited quantity available for a limited time, so is now or never!

About my art, last week I had a very intensive life drawing week at a great art school in the center of London, I have to say I’m quite impressed by the amount of drawings I did during that week, I’ll be uploading some of the work I did there as soon as I finished taking the photos, also I’ll be doing some short courses during two months and I’m sure it will bring something new to my work, stay tuned.

This year has been one of the best years I’ve ever had so far, things have been great in many ways, I’ve done things I thought I was not able to do, I’ve challenged myself and grow as a result of many wonderful and personal experiences, that feeling of knowing that now you’re way much better than before is great and the feeling that things will grow much more its there, I won’t bother you with all the details of what happened during this year but in resume I’ve meet wonderful people, travelled lovely countries and done things I always wanted and planned to do, what’s next nobody knows, but I’m sure it will be great in many ways and with your response and support It will be much more bigger, thanks guys for being here with me this year, merry Christmas and Happy New Year!.

About the artwork: this Christmas themed illustration was done while I was in Venezuela back in January, I remember drawing it in my room and enjoying a lot the pencil work, by that time was pretty late and out of place to post it so I decided to paint the line art with different palette and style mixing and blending new tones, even the drawing has a more manga feel like my current style. hope you like it

P.S the green packs at the bottom left are called Hallacas a traditional Christmas Venezuelan dish (T_T I want one)

Yeap!

I managed to upload and set up my space in redbubble with a 2009 calendar and some of my best selling prints in large sizes as many suggested in my previous Journal, I’ll try to add more works as people request them I’m also planning to add some t-shirt designs so stary tunned and hope you like the calendar .

Shop Link

http://www.redbubble.com/people/Reiq

http://www.redbubble.com/people/Reiq

Ok the guys at had a project called Art Schmart for a University Television Show and they asked me for my permission to use some of my work to do a fictional documentary about me, somehow it’s pretty weird and it’s not related to my real story, however it’s amusing to see how they did it, hope you like it

Part 01:

Part 02:

I don’t know why but recently I’ve been struggling to get something decent and nice out there, the poses I imagine are not as dynamic as I would like them to be and the reason of this is because I do not draw or practice enough, from all the things I do during the process, the sketch and final drawing are always the hardest things to do for me, I know where my mistakes are but I spent so much time fixing things that I don’t know if I’m improving things or just making it worse, I guess that what you get when you learn to draw by yourself.

It’s often assumed that an artist who can draw is able draw anything they want, but it’s doesn’t aply to me, I got some areas where I excel but other where I’m pretty lame and I hate that I would love to have a balance and get a level where I can draw with confidence with out thinking twice about how things should look.

anyway an example of what I’m talking about is this drawing I finished today and had to make loads of revision until I got something decent, I wish I had the skill now to do this drawing in minutes not hours!

Finally I’m proud to announce that my hentai website Jigglygirls has been upgraded! after one year and half of having JG online I finally got the time and the chance to change the overall look and feel of the website, so far the website was quite basic and the design was quite out dated, this is the change I was talking about like two months ago when I decided to have Candela as the official character of the website, apart from the website the old Html Gallery was replaced with a new and organized flash gallery, also I’ve decided to send some of the original artwork done for the site to be sent to members with more than 3 months with a recurring membership account on the site as a token of appreciation for their support. Why not go and have a look to the new Jigglygirls! http://www.jigglygirls.com

Has been  a long time since the last time I wrote something new in the blog, somehow I find myself wanting to write on the blog but usually something happens and I forget completely to update the blog I think I should overcome my laziness and update more often as many things have been happening both in my professional and personal day life , one of the reason that finally pushed me to write again here is that I’ve finished my 3rd video tutorial in English ( the Spanish version was released first on YouTube), the video was already edited and ready to add the English track, but again more important things crossed my path sketch I had to delay the release, plus is more difficult to explain things in English than Spanish and that means that I have to repeat what I say many time until I’m pleased (I hate to listen myself on videos).

My Work consist in 4 main stages.

1) Idea, sketch  and pencils.
2) Digital inking of the line-art.
3) Coloring in Corel Painter 9.5.
4) Adjustments in Photoshop.

This video tutorials divided in two parts show how I work on the last stage of my process which is the general adjustments, brightness, contrast, levels of colors, application of textures and special effects, I have to clarify that on this video I explain some of the tools I use on Photoshop, but I won’t explain on each one of them, this video is more about the work-flow and less about specific tools, hope you find it interesting and useful, Thanks for your support and remember to join my YouTube Channel if you want to receive more updates about my video tutorials.

Reiq Painter and Photoshop tutorial Texture & Effects 1/2

Reiq Painter and Photoshop tutorial Texture & Effects 2/2

YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/reiqws

Masami Okui (Slayers, Utena, he’s my master, Project Jam and many others) and REIQ in Barcelona.