fiorebruary

fiorebruary 1: waking up

time taken: 2 hours

and we're back, only five months later LMAO. i did this on impulse, as i do, so now i'm stuck here for the next 27 days. i mean i CAN stop if i really have to, but the fun of these challenges is seeing it to the end. at least, it's fun when you look back.

i'm going with a wide movie ratio for these (2.39:1, but some are 2.35:1 oops), i've been watching jjk season 3 and it's kind of inspiring. i'm also inspired by largeonions' 100 days of arknights challenge, who also used movie aspect ratios for their pieces! these are gorgeous and i hope i'll be able to achieve even half of what they can do.

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fiorebruary 2: sunbathing

time taken: 4 hours

i once went to the beach as a kid, and while playing in the sand, saw the wind take my beach ball into the sea. i tried to run after it but my parents stopped me. i felt so bad, they were telling me dolphins were playing with it to cheer me up LMAO

so the original prompt is sunbathing but i ended up just going for a general beach theme. the idea came quickly, but this involved a lot of perspective and angles ive never really done before. i spent most of the time drawing out fiore and ethan and i think they still look a little bit off. there was an idea of a background in the thumbnail but i was so tired at that point that i kinda just drew whatever.

i also didn't have a set palette in mind, only the idea of how i wanted it to look (bright beach day). i didn't really know how to start so i just did base colors and a shit ton of adjustment layers. it definitely turned out better than i expected, i'm not used to trusting the process. for this challenge, i think i'll let myself have fun with adjustment layers and focus more on mood & composition to make these pieces feel more movie-like.

it kind of annoyed me that the fiorefeb with ethan was my most popular on bluesky (as of writing this), but i do hope it's because the colors and the scene are nice and fiore is in a bikini, NOT because ethan is there. it's FIORE FEBRUARY please comment on ethan AFTER noticing fiore. they are friends though so i will keep drawing them together.

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fiorebruary 3: shark

time taken: i don't remember lol maybe 3-4 hours

i think this one is fucking awesome but there is some background info you need to fully appreciate it. (not that i know a lot about cars, just enough to come up with this idea.)

fiore's car is a bmw 6 series e24, which is also known as the Shark because of its sharknose shape. my girlfriend wrote this into fiore because of couurse she would be a bmw driver and also because having a car called the "shark" is fucking awesome.

i thought this was a cool composition. the big shark in front of the little shark, and fiore posing coolly next to her car. i was thinking of yuki tsukumo's leather fit while drawing this but gave her a different style of jacket instead. my girlfriend also told me to give her red jordans.

i think the shark couldve been a bit more detailed but i was kind of losing steam by the time i got there. it wouldve been nice to have the wall looking more like. a wall, with the text and shark looking more painted. maybe another time. i'm proud of the contrast though with the red and cyan though.

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fiorebruary 4: [mirror]

time taken: i also dont remember i think 4 hours

drawing out of my skill level today. this turned out okay and i think the colors saved it. i tried to do some kind of two point perspective/fish eye thing but it kind of just looks like a roundabout LMAO

ive had this idea for a while of fiore and camille's reflections on a convex mirror at a mountain road but i dont think it translated very well from my brain to the tablet. i had trouble drawing the plants and it kind of killed the last bits of motivation i had to do this.

i've been thinking about this since june i think? when i went to yangmingshan in taiwan. i think mountain roads are really cool but the idea of driving there is terrifying to me. i enjoy the small detail of the bite marks on their chests very much though and i'm kinda sad the mirror blur makes them harder to see. fiore being shorter than camille is also very cute. their height difference is only supposed to be 3 inches but i like it when the shorter one is more dominant.

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fiorebruary 5: wire

time taken: maybe 3 hours

full disclosure this is fueled by my desire for fiore and is part of my personal fiore fantasy of coming with her to settle things in her hometown, despite her being against it and not wanting to put me in danger. yet she is smiling at me warmly, tiredly, and thankful that i'm here with her.

anyway this was an easier one for today, simple centered composition with simple background, and just a bust shot. simple but effective, the rim lighting really brings it all together. i really like this one. i hope i can think of more simple to execute artworks that come out really nice.

i also really like fiore in armor. i hope my girlfriend designs more armor for her. God fiore's so hot

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fiorebruary 6: camille's birthday

time taken: maybe 4 hours

it's camille's birthday! didn't have time to make birthday art so camille is the star of this fiorefeb entry. i went on a date with my girlfriend on this day so i ended up finishing pretty late. not my best work, i took longer too because i was watching the new jjk episode. theres always tomorrow, i don't really think i need to spend more time than i should trying to perfect every single piece.

the scene was inspired by underscores' wallsocket album video. when i was younger i always wanted to ride the back of a pickup truck (i have, but in a place with a low speed limit). i also thought i was so cool and awesome that i jumped out of a moving car while trick or treating (at maybe 5 kph or something, not fast enough to be that dangerous). knowing me i probably ended up with a bruise though lol.

the figures take me the most time so i end up doing them first, but then if i spend too much time i get too tired to do the background details. aghhhhhhh. i also had to fight the temptation to make this a beautiful blue sky + rim lighting again because that is my absolute favorite kind of sky and lighting. i'm boring, i know.

by the way i'm having so much fun with eleventy. these entries are all written in separate files and i feel so neat and organized.

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fiorebruary 7: park

time taken: maybe 3-4 hours again

another artwork above my skill level. the vision is THERE but i cant execute it well, much less with a "time limit" - i use this loosely because i know my ass is not setting a timer nor checking the time, just doing this start to finish in one sitting. this is how they turn out more high effort but also take a lot longer than i'd like.

i saw a photo of a cat in a flower field and i've been wanting to do something similar since. i also saw this really cute artwork of saber(?) from fate in a sunflower field, i can't find it anymore but this was the reason i went for sunflowers.

i was imagining a scene where fiore's back in aqmara strolling around in a vespa in a flower field.

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fiorebruary 8: hotpot

time taken: 2.5? hours

been having hotpot a lot lately. i didn't expect to like haidilao so much but GOD the tomato broth fucks so hard. anyway fiore and ethan are not having hotpot here but rather malatang. i thought the classic "characters having hotpot together" would be a nice scene but i thought about how much id have to think about scaling and perspective and drew two sketches and decided i'd just draw them in front of some sauce station or buffet. and then i remembered malatang exists.

malatang, as ive experienced in sydney, is where you fill up a bowl with a bunch of raw food buffet-style, pay by weight, and then have it cooked by the chefs in a stir fry or soup of your choice. it's good, very nice for the colder seasons in sydney, and for eating out with your friends where you need to split the bill. i remember my friends got theirs a little too spicy and they were sweating in the restaurant.

the last time i had malatang was right before my girlfriend and i got covid. we both thought we had food poisoning until we took a covid test. afterwards i lost my sense of smell and taste for at least a month and it was probably one of the worst feelings ive had in my life. the texture of burgers is kinda gross actually and i avoided eating them for a while even after recovering.

we have malatang in the philippines now and ive been meaning to convince my family to try it, but i havent been craving it enough to bring it up. i have, however, been trying to convince them to try haidilao but no luck so far. i NEED to have that tomato soup again.

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fiorebruary 9: cheese

time taken: 2 hours 10 minutes

i was out for most of the day today so i went with something simple. breaking away from the "movie stills" theme because im lazy as fuckkkk and i couldnt really think of a background for this. i mean i COULD but i just wanted to get it done quick.

from what my girlfriend told me bast maran, fort aqmara is just made up words. fiore is sponsored by her hometown's cheese because i thought it was cool there was an olympic gymnast sponsored by parmesan cheese. this is actually the first sponsor/logo for fiore's racewear (and still is one of the ONLY logos).

i like cheese so she gets a comically large wheel of cheese, and also because my reference was an in-room photoshoot of myself holding a large tomato pillow. there were actually several poses buuuut i wanted something easy

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fiorebruary 10: pool

time taken: 2 hours 30 minutes

this one has a matching one for tomorrow (if i manage to push through with that idea). i caught up to star strike it rich recently and my girlfriend told me to draw back muscles. still not the best at them, i should do proper studies sometime..

i've only been working with my girlfriend's prompts half the time so far? maybe it's decision paralysis.. i keep asking her to reroll prompts for the day because i can't come up with anything. though that's also led me to being able to come up with some myself. ideas seem to come to me before i sleep so i have to tiredly get up and type something on my phone before trying to fall back asleep.

i'm happy with the time taken for this! though it's also helpful to have a simple pose, background, and perspective. i think with these, drawing the character usually determines how long i'll take. complex poses take MUCH longer because i'm a master at neglecting studying anatomy and proportions. i don't worry too much about backgrounds and props' perspective, as long as it looks believable it's good for me. the imperfections give it character. or something. but if the character looks off it kinda takes away from the piece, at least to me.

i usually do these after 10pm when i put on my tgel (because i shower + dry hair + brush teeth) but i ended up drawing a bit early and doing my routine in between. time taken is always an estimate though, i really cannot be bothered to time it accurately.

fiorebruary is so blue. i think the contrast is very nice between the blue scenes and her red palette. i also just really like the color blue.

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