Flower Boy Cathedrals and Caramel Coffee With Milk

After an intense marathon of Vampire Knight (yes, an anime with corny romantics and sexy vampire characters, I am one of those people), I was so motivated and inspired to make a handsome character of my own come alive. 

The renaissance, painted cathedral ceilings, stained glass windows and conservative romance of that time, mixed with Japanese pop culture gave birth to this postcard creation. 

Granted it's not a masterpiece, but I have fallen in love with him none-the-less. 

Let's start with how he came to be.

Step 1; Sketch and Create

You can see here that this is a half completed sketch. With time already running out before work, I was able to crank out one flower boy but finished halfway with this one. My main focus at the time was the wheels in the circles and his body anatomy. 

Step 2; Completing Sketch details

When I had an extra couple of minutes, I filled in the rest of the details in the background panels and also decided to complete his body, going into the window. It was a hard decision, but I'm not good at drawing legs from this angle, so I cheated artistically.

Step 3; Inking and Outlining! 

  My favorite step in drawing is when I can finally put my inking pens to use. Outlining and detailing and adding line thickness and thinness.. so much fun!

You can see a zoomed in shot of the most detailed part of this postcard, the back of his head! So many lines!

Step 4; Outlining everything and Erasing those Pencil Lines!

This is a very satisfying step for me, seeing the progress from penciled idea to inked in design! Let all of those sketchy and doubtful lines go and keep the concrete. This was particularly hard for this piece however, because I had written in details over and over, the pencil lines were pretty heavy and deep. Oops! I'll have to remember to pencil lighter next time...

Step 5; Make it Stronger, Make it Bolder!

Part of my technique and drawing characteristic is bold outlines. I won't give how I do it all away, but there is a method to my madness in bolding. It's not for everything, but just so your eyes can easily discern background to subject more easily. (Plus it makes all those average details look way more detailed next to a bold line!) It's a slight difference, but compared to the picture above, you can see the difference.



Step 6; Color baby, Color!

Now it's time to breath in some life into this drawing! I began with the small detailed things, as their base colors will make up the rest of the picture's color scheme. (Plus, it'll keep me from using too many colors if I keep track of all the colors I'm already using)

A closer shot of the leaves so you can see how I tried to blend and create a perfect shade for these plants and flowers.














Step 7; Keep Coloring..

At this point, I wasn't as nervous about my color choice, because well, most of it was colored already! All I had to do was maintain a nice texture, shade, and keep within the lines all throughout. Now to decide if I should color his body or not...








Step 8; Completion!

Well, would you look at that. I decided to color in his body after all! I wasn't as pleased with how I got his body done, as the texture of this postcard is made for watercolor, the way the marker caught the paper wasn't ideal to me, but hey, at least it worked out!

Ta-da and it's finished! And in case you were wondering, this postcard too 3  Caramel Coffees and 2 days. Now you can check him out on Etsy! Thank you so much for reading and enjoy!