The Daiku Maryu (in Watercolor)

It dawned on me I never posted this effort and entry into The Sci-Fi Fanatic painting series.

I posted the one I did recently of The Phoenix from Battle Of The Planets, but omitted posting about this one completed before it.

This is the Daiku Maryu from Gaiking.

I'm a big fan of mech and spaceships and this one is like a hybrid of the two. Anyone who knows the series Gaiking knows that Gaiking is assembled from the head of the great ship called the Daiku Maryu.

The watercolors really popped on this one and I was generally thrilled with the overall final product.

I'm always finding flaws and things that I would like to have improved upon, but nothing is perfect.

In fact, the back drop was a complete disaster, but the end result was much better than it appeared it was going to be. I really need to nail those backdrops first and have a better plan on these things. I'm always so fixated on the ships or mech and tend to overlook the need for a strong background.

Anyway, this is the end result for Gaiking's Daiku Maryu, the great space dragon.

The Phoenix (In Watercolor)

My efforts to paint continue.

I had wanted to do something from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (1972-1974) a.k.a. Battle Of The Planets (1978-1980). I had really wanted to paint the G-2 or G-4, but ultimately settled on the queen mother of all mech equipment on the series in the form of The Phoenix, also a mad favorite.

As you can see I have added the nose accordingly. For a time I played with adding the G-4 operated by Keyop, but decided against it. These things are always imperfect, because it's ultimately an artistic expression. Even animators express a creator's design. These are just fun interpretations of some of the most wonderful designs in animation and a great way to create something personally rewarding. Anyway, see for yourself.

The images I took note the progress over a few weeks. It's not an overly complex piece but it's vibrant. It's always fun to see it come together and this one went as quick as transmute to the fiery Phoenix herself.

Once it was completed, I looked at a few potential mattes for the painting (as noted at the bottom in samples), but settled on the final product (the last image), which included a kind of red velvet matte with a terrific frame made of stars. I thought it looked a bit patriotic with all of the red, white and blue despite the irony of it being a Japanese-created design by Tatsunoko Productions.

Anyway, onto the next one. G-Force!

Gurren Lagann Watercolor

It's me, Rembrandt.

Obviously that's meant to be funny. I can't tell you how mercilessly The One To Be Pitied ridicules my efforts to paint. It's brutal I tell you. That's okay I persist.

I found this shirt that best explains my love for all things anime. It was succinct and rather to the point, but it's true that many folks I know wouldn't get it at all and I wouldn't bother trying to explain my affection for it either. They would look at me like King Ghidorah, you know, with three heads!




For those who have visited Musings Of A Sci-Fi Fanatic you know my love outside of writing has been to paint once a year. Hey, I'm not prolific. Anyway, the whole painting thing, unlike writing, is essentially like channeling my inner child. I drew so many pictures of superheroes, robots and spaceships as a child I may have destroyed a small forest in Europe. I generated pictures using boxes of Crayola crayons like a printing press for a newspaper business at their peak before the Internet came along. In fact, I recall periods when I would create pictures of monsters and various superheroes were drawn, essentially in stick form with their respective colors and powers, battling a given creature. Human Torch, Silver Surfer, The Thing, Mr. Fantastic and Spider-Man were frequent flyers on reams of construction paper. But anime vehicles and other amazing mech designs were entirely fair game. Gosh, I wish I had just a handful of those pictures to smile upon today.




And truth be told, one of the reasons I love drawing anime so much is my envy of artists in Japan and here at home in the USA in comics that I respected and loved so much growing up. I'm definitely a frustrated artist who consciously wishes he had the talent of John Byrne (Fantastic Four, X-Men), Yukito Kushiro (Battle Angel Alita), Jack Kirby, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Neon Genesis Evangelion), Bill Sienkiewicz (Moon Knight), Tsutomu Nihei (Knights Of Sidonia), George Perez (The Avengers) and others. Oh to dream of what might have been.

So here I am, much older, and still desiring to draw, paint and generally create pictures however unprofessional. And I confess they are essentially for my own affections. I show people the paintings and most outsiders actually kind of like their energy, especially every day folk with no context for anime or where they are from. They seem to love them the most because they are so wild compared to reality. Or I should correctly say they at least pretend to love them.





Friends will often say "Okay cool, but where is it going in your house?" I tell them, "The basement." "The basement!?" they decry. I say, "Yeah, I haven't quite won the battle to hang them on my walls at home. Ha." They usually crack up, but rest assured people, I may be losing the battles but I will win the war and I see the end of the war coming. Besides, if I paint enough of these puppies there will be no room left in the basement and the family will have to relent. I do have a plan and I will execute.

Nevertheless, I press on undeterred. The latest watercolor effort centered on world famous Gunmen and anime Gurren Lagann. And by the way there is no great formula for how I arrive at my selections. Essentially it's whatever I'm kind of interested in putting together at the time I plan to sit down. I think it over for a week or two but that's about it. In December I was oscillating between the Argo from Star Blazers and Gurren Lagann. Well, the Argo lost, but I must attempt a vehicle or ship for my next go round. My family would also like me to do something original. I think I would enjoy designing something original and maybe I will attempt such a feat. We shall see.





And why watercolor? For whatever reason I just like the idea of working with watercolor. Some of the anime artists out there will often approach their work with a more watercolor like quality rather than the traditional manga look of pencil and lines. Makoto Shinkai is a good example of this kind of animator. I suppose I love the whole idea of the manga pencil affect created in Japanese comics, but attempt to use watercolor to create that look. But of course I don't pretend to be the skilled artist these true artists really are.

This latest effort, the Gurren Lagann Watercolor, is the fourth watercolor after my first attempt here with Evangelion Unit-02, a second with Evangelion Unit-00 here and a third effort, Evangelion Unit-01 here.

This year, after a two year hiatus from painting, I approached the painting effort a little differently and found that it did NOT work for me. First, I received a new painting easel from The One To Be Pitied. Apparently she makes every effort to facilitate my efforts as a source of amusement. It's the first time I've ever used it. The previous three were sketched out flat on the dining room table. This time I utilized the easel on the table. I was feeling like a real artist. Ha, but a mere façade to the truth.



Second, I sketched out the piece essentially using two reference pictures with an assortment of about five to seven other images off the web. You can see my Ipad in one of the images. In fact, it's kind of interesting to see the little differences in the photos contrast with the end result. Coffee, wiped paint, Halloween napkin for wiping and so on are all in evidence.

Third, once the image was sketched I decided to darken the lines first. Attempting to create a nice thick black, manga-like border, but ultimately it did not work for me.



Fourth, when I began painting the black lines really did not help at all and I essentially ignored them.

Finally, when the work was completed I wound up using black paint anyway to highlight bordering effectively doubling my effort. Also, if you look closely, I altered some of the color schemes here and there as I progressed. One example included the face. It was just too damn pink originally and my gut told me it was all wrong. Even if it was meant to be pink I didn't care for it. I felt as though I got it mostly right in the end (for me). And I took some artistic license here and there with the sunglasses and other points that were difficult, but I think look more like artwork as a result, which is kind of nice. Dang! I still need to work on those backgrounds!



By the way, I made the mistake of taking pictures with my phone rather than my camera like I do when I cover the different series for posts. Oh well.



One of the things I loved so much about Gurren Lagann (2007) is that it was such a retro throwback to such classic robot designs found in the likes of series like Gaiking (1976-1977) some two decades earlier. I've included an image as a reminder. The face, the horns and even the use of wings in some Gurren Lagann images take you right back to the creations of the 1970s. I love that about this series!




Oh and I would be remiss if I didn't say what an excellent job the folks at Michaels do on framing. They are so extremely helpful and often assist on the color combinations for the appropriate frame. They kind of guide the way on it and it's kind of fun working it out with them.

So for my next trick I'm actually considering the Daikyu Maryu, the very ship that forged the creation that was Gaiking.

And speaking of Gaiking I have some fun posts coming soon featuring the great Gaiking for fans of the classic series and more classic anime.

On that note, I have put away the paintbrushes and I have more posts in the cooker. So more to come. Okay, you can stop chuckling now too.

Eva-01 Watercolor

Evangelion Unit-01, the gorgeous purple devil itself.

I suppose this entry is especially for the hardcore Evangelion fans and to record an entry of my endeavor for posterity. But anyone who enjoys the collectability of all things Evangelion this is at least one of a kind, like it or not. This is the final in a planned trilogy of paintings.

This is my third effort and venture into the world of watercolor painting. It is finally completed. I began the effort around Christmas 2011 and finished at the very end of January/ early February. Two weeks for framing and here we are. My apologies for the lack of images to capture the process. Somewhere along the way I lost sight of doing that and before I knew it I had finished painting and forgotten to use the camera.

I had planned a sort of Neon Genesis Evangelion watercolor trilogy for the living room, but The One To Be Pitied forbids me to put them on the wall. I'm waiting things out a bit. I'm hoping in time an opportunity will present itself. Though, it's not looking too good. Perhaps a yard sale is in their future? That would be unfortunate. Scrapped robots, how fitting. Any buyers out there?

As you know, my first effort was Evangelion Unit-02 or Eva-02. My second effort was Evangelion Unit-00 or Eva-00. As a fan of the series, I was reasonably satisfied as a novice. They were both sketched and painted on 12 x 18 watercolor paper and brought to their respective completions.

For the third and final outing I chose to make Eva-01 in the hopes it would be the center piece on the wall between the other two paintings. So I decided to go bigger on this one. I sketched and painted on 18 x 24 watercolor paper. So, like the Eva-01 itself, this was intended to be the monster with a fairly massive depiction in size.

I do think I'm learning and growing in the process even if just a little. Obviously I have no official training. I am essentially going into the dark night on this one. My kids love the pop art. In fact, the Boy Wonder was all about painting it orange and blue for a completely original representation. Mostly, I'm relatively pleased with the end result of this particular painting complete with the colors, borders and framing chosen. The fellow at Michael's, a guitar man, was digging it. He seemed sincere.

The One To Be Pitied, who has had some painting experience and training, essentially looked at me gobsmacked, speechless and refused to pay the painting deference of any kind. She's brutal. Ultimately she's the one that needs to give it a stamp of approval to make it on that wall and thus far that's not happening. I may have to go with a picturesque cabin in the woods in snow for the next one. My Eva-01 might as well be a naked leg lamp with fishnet, but even Darren McGavin got to put it on display for all the world to see. Of course, that "major award" never went over well. And The One To Be Pitied pretty much has a go at it like McGavin's wife in A Christmas Story. But, I do it for me, much like writing, and enjoy the process of creating a painting. The One To Pitied might ask: "Is that what you call it?" But, damn, I am still seeking a place that welcomes biomechanoid art in full color.

As far as the painting goes, I utilized an image from Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Series. Can you guess which episode? As you can see from the image included in the post, I took artistic license with some of the details, which don't show up on the selected animated cel I used for a guide. I chose to add the red highlights around the eyes often associated with this particular Evangelion. I also chose to detail the hands with the requisite bolts you can sometimes see in the series for the close-ups. The eyes were also lit up to give it the added sense of menace and terror often associated with the beast.

All in all, I'm generally pleased with the outcome and thought I would share the latest effort here with y'all. The complexity and depth of color and shade is always fascinating to me. Sometimes what you aim to achieve comes out on the paper like a happy accident. Though you can certainly achieve your desired vision by manipulating the paint until you get where you want to be. I suppose how I'm approaching the painting isn't necessarily best suited for watercolor. Regardless, painting always looks deeper and far more textured than an animated cel and I always appreciate that aspect of the art form. Look, if it doesn't make that wall and no one sees it at all, it's like it never got painted, so I share it with you. According to The One To Be Pitied, his paints are in the basement, all's right with the world [again]. That's alright, my AT Field is still intact friends. Now where is that still image of the boat in the harbor with the seagulls.