Another Yuki! I felt like trying to improve on what I did with the last one and I think it turned out okay. My only problem would be with her right eye. It didn’t turn out as well as the left. *sigh*

Okay, I think that’s enough Code Geass for now, don’t you? I jus finished my Yuki Cross/Kuran from Vampire Knight Guilty. Yes, I specifically say vampire Knight Guilty because this is the epic vampire with long hair version. Haha. I might draw her again later.

Also, I loved drawing and colouring Suigintou so much that i’m already working on part II! I had a bit of trouble with the hair but that’s okay, I’ll still make it look epic! I hope..

Continuing my love for Code Geass, here is Shirley Fenette!! Yay!! Lol..

For this one, I was watching parts of Code Geass R1 and R2 again, including the ending.. When I got to the ending I thought about the whole series again, what Lelouch had done, and the significance of it all.. Rather than drawing Lelouch however, I ended up drawing Kallen partly because of the impact that his life and his existence had on her, and because Maikeru Nirvana likes her quite a bit..

I also started teaching Maikeru how to colour like me with this drawing and he posted it up as well (here). Go have a look and see if there’s any advice you can give him (and/or visit mine and see if there’s any advice you can give me~)

Above is a quick example of my practicing in which I focused on trying to get a clear facial expression. I focused mainly on the eyes and so that is why here, the rest of the drawing seems much more scrappy in comparison. I found whilst shading the eyes that i completely forgot how I used to shade them and so I had to improvise. Must work on that!

Oh, today I installed Windows 7 Ultimate x86 (32 bit) and Adobe CS4 Master Collection and have been playing around with them a bit. I must say I like the new Photoshop UI and Windows looks pretty good, after a lot of customisation as usual. You can see an example of how I have set up my Photoshop CS4 Extended below in my 21.5″ 1920 by 1080 secondary monitor.

They have added quite a number of new things to CS4 including a menu dedicated to 3D content, and another menu called Analysis. There have also been a lot of purely cosmetic changes, some of which you will notice the moment you run Photoshop whilst others will be found when you start using it properly. Haha, I’m giving nothing away. Anyway, that’s all from me.

As you can see, I’m beginning to slowly get back into designing my own layouts. But you’ll probably also notice they’re nothing like the style I used to do. No fancy stuff, really simple, centred, two column layouts. Although, instead of using anime/manga images or photographs by other people, I now use my own. It takes a lot more effort but it’s worth it! Right?

Anyway, this one features Suigintou from Rozen Maiden. I don’t remember anything about the anime but I think what she’s wearing looks cool and I also like her hair! I changed her eye colour though. It’s supposed to be red but I wanted to use more blue in my layout. I might make some small changes over the next few days but nothing major.

As for the main image of Suigintou itself.. It took around two hours to draw and another seven or so hours to colour. Yeah, I’m really slow. But then I was doing like three other things at the same time! .. Okay, that’s not much of an excuse.

I got the idea from an image of her, sort of similar to this and thought, ‘Wow, I can use this somehow!’ But when I got to actually making a layout out of it.. Well, it wasn’t so easy. Oh well, I managed to come up with something. Hehe. (Obviously I don’t plan out my own layouts too much before I start making them.)

And that’s all I really have to say about this one~