After lurking BA for a few days, I finally decided to make an account and start a sketchbook. I hope to grow as an artist and enjoy the community here. 
This is a remade version of an old piece. I remember making the older one when I was just learning about toon shaders and wanted to make something manga-like and striking.
I wasn’t allowed to embed more than one image in the first post. Here is the original piece. I like to think I’ve gotten mildly better at lighting. 
Welcome- both to BA and to the sketchbook section 
I have some great news for you- there’s a thriving community of users here with sketchbooks that tend to actively engage with and support each other’s sketchbooks. I will be following your sketchbook closely myself, and I’d encourage you to check out some other threads in the sketchbook section and jump in to this secret sub-community that is one of the best things about BA.
Also, I love your image. You’ve done some really creative things that I think work quite well. You definitely have a unique perspective and are doing unique things in Blender- I look forward to seeing what else you come up with
Thank you for the warm welcome and kind words! It makes posting in a new community feel so much less intimidating. 
Also, a Young Justice pfp? Very very cool.
Wow, you’re the first person I’ve encountered here who recognized where my profile picture was from! I’m even more interested in your work now (and you as a person, but that sounds a little creepy )
Welcome to BA! 
Definitely striking! I love how very different people’s Sketchbooks are.
And you’ll soon be able to embed more than one image (and upload videos and blend files up to 5MB), it just takes 10 minutes of engagement with the forum in some way (reading, posting, commenting, liking) to get up to that trust level.
Welcome to BA and the sketchbooks! 
Excited to follow your progress in here.
A not-so-daily warmup sketch from the other day.
The last few days have been spent experimenting, mainly on the manga shaders. A lot of cool detail is found just by messing around with the Normal input on the Principled BSDF. I think Sam Bowman had procedural tutorials that served as a basis for Kristof Dedene’s manga shaders. Might be worth some time in the lab to figure out crosshatching. 
Going for a manga-like look is making me realize I can’t keep avoiding 2D forever. It’ll happen… one of these days…
I think I might be onto something with the red/blue material. Not sure what yet. Definitely, something that’ll please my inner Tron fanboy.
I really like your metal ball with the glowing orange cracks, I think if you switched the square paneling for a hammered metal look, you’d have something even cooler
Nice work, you’re definitely doing some awesome stuff with materials!
I tried the hammered look on the right and then just tried winging it on the left. I think you’re spot on. Visually, It’s far more interesting. The square paneling looks flat by comparison. Killer suggestion, J. Thank you. 
I got nothing done that I set out to do. School is fun like that.
After exploring past the sketchbooks, I gotta say: the people here are so crazy good. It’s insane how high-level the conversations can be. Very exciting and also very intimidating. I got a touch of Imposter Syndrome and found my way around it, which included a lot of going outside and enjoying the sun. After getting over it, I just started taking some of the amazing advice here.
I spent some time going over old pieces and picking a few more that I want to remake. When doing so, I reexamined my process. Prior to picking up Blender in earnest back in Sept 2021, my main artistic focus was writing. I spent a lot of time making large projects that sometimes got finished and sometimes didn’t. The volume of unfinished projects bothered me to the point where I just stopped attempting anything past a certain scope. When I started Blender, I really wanted to break away from perfectionist tendencies and just enjoy creating. I heard a piece of advice like “quantity over quality until you know what you’re doing” and took it to heart.
My Blender project history is full of small projects (usually >6hrs) and now I want to get away from that. I’m not sure what longer project I want to do yet but we’re getting there.
Also, I can change the thread thumbnail now. Hell yeah. 
Great update, I’m looking forward to whatever longer project you’ll be tackling!
And welcome to the club - I find myself more often than not avoiding to post because I’m comparing myself to other people in the forums (and outside, ofc).
But sketchbooks are meant to be messy and full of progress and stepbacks - when I remind myself what the actual purpose of a sketchbook is, it’s easier to not fall into that comparing-trap.
And hello, fellow writer!
You’re in the right company then, because I’d say most if not all of us know that feeling. Having a way around it is actually pretty good, sometimes that’s the best you can do, because then at least it doesn’t paralyze you or make you give up. I’ve learned to live with it that way, since it just never entirely goes away, even when I’ve been objectively good at something for years.
Let’s hear it for messy human psychology. :wry grin:.
3 / 12 / 23 | Making A Moodboard
Just a short update today.
I mentioned in the last post that I’m starting to take advice from around here. First new workflow addition: Actually Using References. I’ve used references here and there but I don’t usually find them for every project or sketch. Making from imagination is fun and something I’ll still do; however, I’m missing out on a level of detail. So let’s start correcting that.
I tried putting the “striking manga” look on a mood board.
I like the idea of a world that uses 2D details like crosshatching alongside neon and glowing FX for strong contrast. Here’s the first run at getting the look. I was unsure if I wanted the FX to be light sources. It certainly adds a lot of drama to a shot.
Tweaking this will be interesting.
I like “the look” quite a lot, with some tweaking I think you’ll really have something uniquely interesting
3 / 13 / 23
I’ve read so much manga yet they’re all flying out of my brain when I want to put them on a reference board. 
Bleach and Jiangshi X, ones I used in last update’s board, are offering a lot of good inspiration for shading and layout ideas. Jiangshi X also gives fun ideas for how to use what I was applying here. Stay tuned. 
Today, I kept up yesterday’s experiments on hatches in the shader. I’m not sure if this setup is what I want to stick with. We’ll see where it goes.
That looks neat, getting major daft-punky-musicvideo-vibes, but I also see where you’re coming from in regards to Manga. The style looks great!
3 / 14 / 23 | Backgrounds
Pureref is so useful. It’s a wonder I’m just getting around to using it.
I think I’ll start putting boards into Krita to write notes over them. It might help me keep my thoughts organized.
There are now three new boards. All subject to change. One for effects, one for shading over (mostly) minimal white backgrounds, and one for more detailed grayscale backgrounds. Manga in general takes advantage of minimal white backgrounds so other parts of the composition shine. Tite Kubo is one of the best at it. I think I’ll reference his work quite a bit.
I want to lean more into manga’s traditional grayscale look, which I attempted with today’s sketch. Which is just me re-styling yesterday’s sketch but… I won’t tell if y’all won’t. 
I love that it gave you a Daft Punk vibe. This gave me a very fun idea on getting a pop of color. I really appreciate that you and others are enjoying the process. The support is encouraging.
Pureref’s note function (ctrl-n) not good enough? (Not being critical, just curious if I am missing something.)
Didn’t know that was a thing, personally. Thanks!
