Evolution

Well, in case you are wondering where I came up with Limizuki, I will tell you.


My freshman year in high school, although I don't remember it much, was an interesting time for me. I was starting to draw seriously, rather than my usual doodles. It was also the first time I had ever tried drawing a wolf. How I came about drawing wolves, however, was because of a friend I had along with an anime called Wolfs Rain.


Here's a general synopsis of the conversation we had:


Me: "Oh hay, you has a wolf?"


Friend: "its a fox..."


Me: "I want a wolf!"


Friend: "Its a fox!"


Me: "I'm gonna draw a wolf!"


Friend: "..."


I blatantly ignored the fact that, yes, indeed, her character was in fact a lime green fox. But from that point on, I declared that I would draw wolves.


My first attempt was pathetic, and I am frankly embarrassed by it.

This thing right here was Limizuki's very first design, an attempt at the Wolfs Rain style of art. After this design, I thought she looked rather bland, so I added a splash of blue and a few accessories on her. Unfortunately, I do not have the original file, just some fan art someone made for me.

Yes, she had bows and leg band things. She still retained her spiked collar, however. I was still unhappy with her design, though. I felt she was lacking in major ways, and I really didn't know what to do with her. So I decided to redesign her once again, this time with a 'demon form' and a 'chibi form'.

I remember the days when I didn't know that there was a such thing as digital art. But once I joined an online art community, I knew that i had to try it. It took nearly a year to convince my mom to buy me this mysterious drawing tablet, and when she finally did, I couldn't be happier. It came with two programs too, Photoshop elements 5 along with corel painter. I first experimented with Corel, but soon found that Photoshop was easier to handle. I didn't know there was a such thing as layers, so all I really knew is that it was a smoother version of the old MS Paint. I used the paint bucket tool, just as I would on MS Paint.

It took me nearly four months to realize that there was a such thing as layers. But when I found it, not only did I feel like a complete idiot, I also started to do more and more digital art. With that new found knowledge came Limizuki's new design. I reverted back to simplicity, as I couldn't remember everything that she had on her.

You have to remember that I only had PS Elements 5, and the pen tool had yet to exist in my world. This was a time where Limizuki had yet to get a past life, or even a reason for having a demon form. But as I grew older, I got more inspired to draw a comic. I was pathetic and made it similar to one of my favorites artist's comic, as I was too uncreative to form my own ideas. I drew them traditional, as I had quite a few colored pencils, and unfortunately, I don't have any evidence of their existence. 


From there, I discovered a magical thing called shading. I couldn't do it all that well, but I tried my best.

It seems I also had a strange obsession with purple, though i will admit that this strange obsession is still in place. I'm a total tomboy, you see, so this was indeed a strange obsession for me. From there, I experimented more with shadows and highlights, and even tried a picture without a lineart. Well, lets just say it didn't go all that well.

Then I had fun experimenting with transparent backgrounds.

You don't see it now...but the background is transparent. I even tried more detail in my pictures. Though, I only did two of them with extreme detail, finding it to be too time consuming for my tastes.

I went further with my experiments by trying to do real backgrounds, instead of just gradients. My first attempt just had to be one of the more difficult things- rocks and clouds.

Needless to say, I went back to doing simple backgrounds, preferring to make cool designs out of gradient colors. Mostly because I was too lazy to care much for backgrounds. I started to download brushes that people had made and using those, for example, stars. I can't tell how many times I tried drawing stars, and failed miserably. By now, however, I was utilizing my school's superior photoshop (elements 6 lol) to make my pictures, as it was cooler looking and I could use it more than at home. Then only a few months after i first used Elements 6, I recieved CS 2


And here we come to the last stretch of our journey, the art that I create now. Limizuki, after 4 years, has a past now, and ShadowFang ( the demon thing) has a reason for her being. And we also come to Limi's final design, a simple black and blue dire wolf.

And if you're wondering how I came up with the name Limizuki, it's a rather simple story. I made a fail. Her name is a mix of Chinese and Japanese. Li (chinese) means Black and Mizuki (japanese) means beautiful moon. Put them together and you get Beautiful Black Moon. Well, let's just leave it at Black Moon. I put a black crescent moon on her front legs so compensate for her name meaning.


Well, this is the end of our little reminiscing party. I thank you for reading~


So long, and thanks for all the fish~ (if you understand the reference, I give you 10 brownie points!)