Hey there, fellow citizen of the internet! Thanks for coming over to my little corner of Bearing News. My name is Joanna, and I am one of Southside Media’s artists.
Like a great number of other artists in the world, I consider myself self-taught. Without a “formal” art education, I turned to the great World Wide Web to draw inspiration from the multitude of artists that have made themselves known through social media sites like Instagram, Facebook and DeviantArt.
In this blog, I will be highlighting some of my favorite artists and what I love about their style before attempting to integrate what I learn from them into my own work!
First up is Miguel Mercado, an artist based in the Philippines whose jaw-dropping digital paintings look like they belong in a posh little gallery in Paris. (Check them out here!) He has done a variety of work ranging from beautiful fanarts of Sailor Moon, Overwatch and Pokemon Go, stellar interpretations of the Marvel and DC universes, to his breathtakingly beautiful original paintings. Focusing mostly on the human figure and portraiture, his emphasis on tone, expression and lighting can be found throughout all of his pieces.
One thing that I love about Miguel’s style is the values in each artwork, or in simpler terms, the lights and darks of his colors. Take this value and lighting study he did for instance: (original)

In the portrait on the left, the shadows on the character’s face are not defined at all; the same pinks and blushes are used for different parts of his face, resulting in zero refinement of his features. In the portrait on the right, (ignoring the fact that he doesn’t have a mouth) the tones on his face are sporadic, and I clearly didn’t think about what each color represented in terms of lighting and shade. Because I rushed, both pieces also not anatomically nor proportionally accurate.