Yup, More Background Practice. This Time A Trip To The Rooftop In A City At Night.

Motivation and an Idea

I am currently trying to draw my characters, but since I kind of struggle with that, I decided to take a break from that today and rather start figuring out how to write about them. Then I realized, it's probably best, if I first introduce the main idea that connects all (/most) of them.

As I started, I had two things: motivation and an idea.

After I played Undertale for the first time, I discovered the huge fandom behind it and realized that the world I loved so much had a whole other dimension to it (literally 😂). I saw the great content people made, like art or music. That made me plant the little seed of motivation into my head. I was thinking, maybe I could make something that great as well.

That was the moment I started to write a story. I didn't feel too confident to draw anything, so the best thing I could do was write. I was really proud of how it turned out. It was pretty basic and stuck to the normal game. I also had this idea (not the one I was talking about up there, but it's important for where I am now) that I was suppressing, since I wanted to focus on my AU.

One evening, I decided to give that idea a chance and after I kept dreaming the entire night about it, I spent the entire morning putting it into words. The phase after that, I call the downfall. My problem is that I am a perfectionist. So I kept rewriting the chapters until I finally managed to break the story for myself. After ten attempts, an almost finished first chapter with thirty pages, almost a year time spent running in circles and a couple other reasons I finally managed to kind of let go. (I still think there could maybe the possibility that I might be able to tell that story, but for now it's best to leave it behind. I also kind of can't let entirely go. For example: I use the main character in my profile pic 😊)

After realizing that I needed to stop since it lead nowhere, I needed something new to be obsessed with. While writing, I also wrote down a couple of ideas for potential later characters. And as I reviewed what I had collected, I realized that two of them would fit quite well as a duo. First, I still wanted to include my old character as well, but I let go of that after another month.

Now, that I've explained my motivation, it's time to present my idea! (... why is this becoming so long? 😅)

I wanted to take the concept of the genocide run in another light. I mean sure, there were so many worlds out there, where people just killed for fun or they didn't have another choice. My first characters lean more into the category of it being an accident. Since this was the main concept I was going by, I called my AU 'Club of Genociders' (by now, I don't really like that name but it still fits and I have currently no better idea how to name it.)

After FINALLY having explained my main concept (and rambling too much 😂) I can tell that this little idea snowballed into such a huge story. I am still struggling to put it all into words, so I figured it's best to share what I have to avoid making the same mistakes again. but what's most important, I love the way everything is evolving. From the characters, over the storyline to major plot twists. I also realized that I keep adding new possible characters to the story (not sure if I'll include them all though. That really depends on how the story turns out.)

If you made it this far, thanks for reading 😊 (I really didn't want to make it that long 😅)

Well, didn't finish the sketch yet, but it's fun to make another drawing for my wall.

Am I weird for already wanting to prepare for Art Fight for the next year? We don't even have Christmas but I know I will run out of time if it starts next year.

Can anyone tell me how to draw lightning and tunder?

I'm struggling to draw energy lightning circling around a specific spot.

How does lightning work? It's just rigid lines but it's also not.

Edit:

figured out how to do it digitally. But how the hell are you supposed to do that with traditional mediums like acrylics or markers?

And yes, I made a short sketch to figure this out. But digitally it's quite easy. Just draw some white squiggly lines along a shape, erase some parts, repeat that process until you're satisfied and then add colored glow beneath.

Good news, now I'm at 2 min.

Bad news, I don't know how to continue.

Well, here I am again, telling myself to start small and then wanting to whip out a 3 min animation.

It's done

Here the links to the sketch and the lineart.

Warning, rant below

I almost ruined it ... just a friendly advise, if you use alcohol markers and have one of those protective sheets below, make sure you clean them from time to time ... otherwise the color stains the paper you're drawing on 😑

I tried to fix it with some new arcylic markers but they were way too intense BUT I found a white idk-what-it-is pen, and I was able to smeer it a bit to lighten the color.

If you look precisely you still see the stains but I'm glad I managed to save it somehow ...

And this is the hair done. I started coloring the shadows and the light parts seperatly and went over it with more pressure.

But my pencil broke so many times as I sharpened it 😞 I guess I must have dropped it somewhere for it to break that much.

Also, the paper started curling again. And another problem: due to the mass of pencil on paper, it sticked to my palm and stuck to the right side of the page. Luckily I managed to erase most of it. It's still slightly visible but so light that I probably won't mind.

Okay, I stopped working on the previous sketch since something about it was not right. I'm not sure what but it felt weird and I didn't like it.

Instead I moved on to the next one. Sadly, I forgot to make a picture of the sketch before slightly erasing but I wanted to show it nethertheless. So, here's Eijiro in his hero costume

Can't wait to line and color it 😀

Just to prove that this hand looks like the one from the scene:

And yeah, I have no idea why I drew this. And ignore the arm from the hand.

Okay, so I tried a second time and this time I really like it 😁 (ignore the half-cut text)

I really need to try this out with water colours.

alternate version here:

Hello again, some time since I posted something 😅 I know it might be a little late, but after watching the new Underverse Episode, I wanted to draw a scene and I finally found some time to draw again😊

I tried to achieve the same glowing effect as in the reference and I'm not quite sure if I managed to achieve what I wanted. I was also not sure whether to blend the background or not. (I decided to leave it that way to not ruin it 😅) And now I realize that my camera made the one side of the picture lighter than the other what looks really cool 😁

Cross belongs to @jakei95

Fatal Error belongs to @xedramon

Aaaand, here the screenshot from Underverse: