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Soldiers of the Nation of Yugash march through the swamps of the Southwest, commanded by the Champion Unhesitatingly Loyal Weapon.

This was a fun bit trying to combine actually a couple older things I had about. One of the older pictures I had with an environment was of two soldiers from the fantasy nation of Yugash going through a swamp while in full gear and armor. I also had a lot of drawings of my interpretation of an Alchemical named Unhesitatingly Loyal Weapon, who was originally just name-dropped in the book Exalted sourcebook Time of Tumult and so I took to design my own take of her that has more or less had some consistent bits since then. So in this pic I wanted to revisit them both in full color, taking into account what I've learned about composition, anatomy, color, and the software itself.

I’ll maybe do a “Making of” post in the next few days on this one. And if you’re interested in a higher resolution version of the illustration, check out the DA page or drop me a line.

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Kind of a redo of an older pic. Full info and link over on DA 

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I actually forgot to link to this and a couple other pics here in a while. Gonna just put htese here for nayone stillf ollowing this nad interested in maybe some making-of posts. Might as well keep those going.

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Creating the Forest-Killer

Yet another “how I made it” post.

This was a bit of a different project. It came about when I was a bit on an artist block and a friend gave me a bit of an idea of drawing something based on how art notes for Magic tend to be done. I’m told also it has an L5R reference in there also, but since I don’t know that setting I’ll go with what I had. Here was the original description:

Color: White creature

Location: Not important. Perhaps a village, grassy plain, or woodland scene.

Action: Show a confident-looking male samurai in a dark green kimono with both swords drawn, ready to strike. His opponent is irrelevant but can also be included. His hair should be long but controlled, perhaps tied up in a tail. His forearms, if visible, should be tattooed to look like fish scales. His back, if visible, has this character in whichever color you like:毘.

Focus: The samurai.

Mood: Self-assured confidence.

For this one, I thought to take the bits that stood out: Battle with a grassy plain seemed cool; I wanted to show off the tattoos and the confidence.  I decided to show that with the samurai being relaxed with not so relaxed soldiers, and even framing the image in context of said soldiers to put focus on the samurai.

I first tried to do this picture in Corel Painter. I sketched it, laid it out and such in my usual steps, but I found that something about how I had grown inexperienced with the program and the more “sketch paint” style I use to do was making it take longer than I think I’d have liked.  But for now, here’s the sketch, ink, and the last paint scene.  I think a big thing is I got lost on where the edges should be and where lighting could have been.

So, I scrapped this project for a while and let it sit for a few months, before deciding to restart it from scratch.  This time, I decided to try something different. Push the “cartoony” look I have been cultivating of late, and see how that goes. And, maybe push the layout more with framing. In hindsight if I would have done something extra, I’d of tilted the “camera” a bit more, but overall this looked more dynamic than the original, even though we don’t see the samurai’s face.

I used a lot of pattern brushes to figure out things like the tattoos and the sword handles. Overall, I think this had a better sense of depth and I went with it.

Due to how many characters there were, I wanted to be sure where I wanted shading to be. I decided instead of an evening scene, to stick to the “white” theme from Magic and do something more daytime, but with a kind of overcast feel to it instead. This also let me push things like color depth of field, with the soldiers in the back being much lighter/paler color wise than the foreground and I would make the samurai’s outfit the brightest colored thing in the picture to draw focus to him.  To kind of setup my values, I found the silhouettes of the four characters and played around a bit to be sure I had the right idea.

I decided to put in the kanji here and wanted to do something to make the samurai feel less like he was blending in.  I messed with the horizon line a bit and came up with this.

Then, I started adding flats, and I felt something was missing.  

The samurai felt too static and there wasn’t a sense of distance I think. I wanted the characters to seem more on the same plane. I forced the issue by adding a plane, representing grass. This did a lot I think to add more depth to the drawing and clarify who’s where in relation to each other.

I then used a grass brush to put in the actual grass. I did it in a few layers, one in front of the samurai, one between him and the soldiers and a final background one, using various selection and fill stuff to make things brighter and smaller the further back they were.  The gradient helped add depth to the drawing, and I really liked the way it makes the top part of the illustration seem more important. Note I also redrew the tattoos. The original pattern just didn’t look right, and I ended up having to draw them from scratch, which I think made it look better anyhow.

I don’t have a complete “shading no gradients” picture sadly, but mostly blocked in colors. Simple cell-shading look here to get a sense of where’s dark and light. Note I also redrew from scratch his left sword handle at this point, but kept the pattern for the right one.

When I do backlight shading, what I often do is use a very soft airbrush of the flat color in the shading. It helps a lot to keep things coherent I find and to get something more metallic, you crank up the contrast of bits. At this point, I’m trying to do the overcast sky and use a watercolor brush for that. I also use some airbrush effects to blur the grass a bit, making like there’s more atmosphere around.

More highlights, this time focusing on an overpaint layer that makes things pop more.  I’m using an airbrush mostly to get a nice “glare” effect on the metal and edges, using a Glow layer in spots to get it to pop more.

Finally, to bring things together, I decide to introduce some “sunbeam” effects. This took some try, but I eventually settled on this. I think it helps ground the light source, and fits with the bright glare in some parts and deep shades in others.  

I think if I were to do some things different, I’d of used the “colored outline” thing in some spots, namely the samurai’s swords and tattoos. There’s also a bit where the glare on the shield is off, but I think overall this was an enjoyable drawing to work on.  I learned a lot and I will try to push things more on stuff like this in the future.

Hope you enjoy folks. Be sure to check-out the full resolution version over on my DeviantArt page here.

Thanks for reading as always.

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Something I did over the weekend while playing around in Clip Studio some.  Trying to get faster and cleaner with my characters. Took too long, but still fun to do.

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Latest illustration using Clip Studio Paint

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Creating Mars

“The last great battle is always the next one.”

Finally the last of the Five Maidens with Mars.  Kind of interesting It hink to see how some of my design sense has shifted with these over the course of ayear, but I kind of have some intent to go back and retoucht he older ones with that in mind.  In any case, this one was fun to do and learned a bit, so let’s show off things.

First, the original picture.  Which looks pretty different I think.  Big things I kept were the kind of grumpy expression and short hair, but nearly everything else to her design went a different route.  

There was frankly too much going on in this one.  I wanted to show all the constellations and while they’re there, she was carrying around a lot.  I also frankly didn’t like her armor design a whole lot and wanted to do something more realistic and utilitarian this time around, which hopefully just made her look like a hard-ass.  So I started as always sketching in my sketchbook to brainstorm and came with a want to maybe do her in Roman style lorica segmentata, because that stuff is pretty iconic and cool. Difficulty was I never drew that before, and there’s also issues issues of keeping her looking female with that going.  As the chibi in this one shows, I considered putting a banner on the spear itself for a moment.

I think I had a good idea at this point and then started working on a sketch, which as usual I did in Sketchable. At first I was worried about things lke her not filling the page enough, which is why I added the big-ol’ fur-trimmed cloak thing, which I think did a good job of both filling the page and making her look more imposing.

Proportions were a bit off and she needed some rearranging on the page, but that came next.  I started things by inking her body and such as normal.  Something I think I wish I did better was make her plate kind of less symmetrical.  I’d of probably “curved” the section more to the left some so there was more movement in her torso, but she looks serious and stiff enough though.  For fun though, some steps.  First just main body:

Then with props.  If youw atch, I went through a lot of iterations of her left hand.

Then some tweaks to some things like limb length and thickness, plus some details, we end up at well, her imposing final version.  I think this final ink compared to the previous one shows how much volume the clock added tot hings in a good way.

Flats ended up leaving to me simplifying her gauntlets and leg armor a bit.  I also thickened her limbs some as she was a bit maybe too twiggy.  This is where Is tarted adding more detail to her shield, including the actual constellation design. Something that helps too is her face paint at this point is now a Multiply layer so I don’t have to worry about it messing up shading other stuff. This is where I also add some details like the little icon on her cuirass and the extra connections around her collarbone. Anyone interested, the shield says “Survival is fury.” The symbol on her cuirass says “survival”

Next is shading, which went through a few iterations.  Something I never was sure about at first was how “glowy” to make the Old Realm text on her shield.   This came about late, after I figured out how I wanted to do the glow on the other portions of the shield.  This is seen as I shaded it, where I for a moment wanted the symbols to look more embossed bronze than glowy symbols this time. Shading is where I also decided more on her eye color, going for a more orange/amber look to make her eyes stand out against the otherwise cool temperature of the drawing’s color palette.

Finally gradients, lighting, all that.  This si pretty simple at this point.  Clip a layer above what you need to highlight and go.  Metals often use their “base” color for the backlight and a brighter color for the shiny (wanted her armor to have this polished steel look, so very bright on that). I did a lot of experimenting on the glow for the shields, as things which where the original red were too dark and hard to see.  I went with the bright pinkish glow here because well, it worked and stood out.  And I finally decided on as one can see making the Old realm glow, which I think adds a nice pop.

And that’s that.  I’ve got a couple not-Exalted things on my plate, but will probably continue with the rest of the Incarna in not long.  Look forward to the Silver Lady in not too long.

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Finally, Mars, the Maiden of Battles. Looks pretty different from the original and there are some spots I might still tweak (I think the fur could be darker in parts).  First try using a dual monitor setup in illustrating too and I think I learned a lot from this one in that area.  Biggest worry is she does look like a boy to a lot of initial folks I talked to who don’t know Exalted, but that’s kind of I guess what happens when you  go for not boob plate. Also, red glow is hard.  I now know to try and not over use it in pictures.  -_-

Last of the Five Maidens of Destiny, but going into 2018, not the last of the Incarna.  In case folks didn’t see it, I’m actually going basically in backwards order through the week on the seven Incarna from Exalted (Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday).  This lets me count down basically to Luna and finish with the Unconquered Sun.  But before those i have some other stuff I want to get to, so stay tuned.

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Sketch Marathon 02

Some sketches about.  Still figuring out the way this site does picture uploads, so bare with me on the repeat post.  But yeah, different little title sand info on each picture follows I guess.

Marching Chibis

Something I have planned for after I’m done with all seven Incarna in this series is something of them all together in some form.  Until then, this was an example of things I did while in a class I TA and got a tad bored.  This is likely going to not be how they actually end up looking and bieng posed in teh ifnal but still was fun.  They’re not quite consistent since I sketched them originally on a few separate pages and did some Photoshop tricks to standardize their size and such.

That Which Calls the Shadows 2017

Something I wanna revisit is Erembour a at some point.  She’s an interesting character to draw for being freaky and having a nice monochrome color scheme to work with.  I might not do it immediately though since I think it overlaps too much with the Incarna drawings and I kind fo want to try soemthing different after I’m done with mars.  This was still nice practice.  Quick sketch with pencil and ink-over with a pen.

Chibi Saturn

Another in-class doodle.  I think a bit thing with this project which is nice is having a pretty good idea of the designs at this point.  If I were to do them again I’d do them in model sheet form I think.

White Crow

Brainstorming a character redux of a Dawn I played in 2e.  Pretty different take on her desing-wise, with something a ways rougher, but sitll pretty defined by her heavy use of firewands and alchemical weaponry if I were to stat her up.  And probably more an all-rounder killer than a Righteous Devil thing.

Mars, the Maiden of Battles Sketch

Kind of a sneak peak of the current Incarna project.  Mars going full Roman legionnaire a bit with her design here.  I’m pretty happy overall with her silhouette hough. The bitch is making sure her hands are holding her shield and spear right.

That’s that for now.  Stay tuned folks.

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Creating Mercury

All directions lead to cute.

Another making-of post, this time of how she came out the spunky Maiden: Mercury, Maiden of Journeys.  

Like before, I did a sketch of Mercury in 2013.  In fact, she was the first Maiden I did, having done the Unconquered Sun and Luna earlier.  I colored those two and was thinking of coloring this but never got around to it.  It got more or less the image I wanted.  She had Hermes-style sandals, a neat scarf that had her constellations all over it, and a magic ladder, for reasons.  I also think I went specifically to make her a bit more “sexy athlete” in this older one since I had the pretty light clothes, but still kind of this running figure.  Anatomy was a mess though.

Before going to Sketchable to mock things up, I did some brainstomring on the pose and outfit.  I wanted to keep more or less the same look of the leggings and arm things, since that actually did look like some photos I looked up of marathon and track runners, so that fit her. I also wanted to make sure she was the most “active” looking Incarna, either about to leave or on the way to get going.  I also wanted to make teh wing sandles glow, and I also wanted to make her the most “petite’ Incanra, if anything due to her outfit binding down.  SO I did a couple sketches for that.

At some point I added the ponytail to things, and decided on a pose (something you can see in the lower right of the second picture. So from there I went and started drawing in Sketchable, to get the rough layout of things down.

So this is what it came down to.  I think she’s really baby-faced here, and there’s something really off with her torso, but it starts the process.  It shows to me at leas the skirt, the ponytail, and the scarf work together.  The scroll isn’t quite feeling as good, but we get to that in the inking.

First round of inks clean up a lot.  Lots of use of Masks, layering and such, and even for a bit I kind of “flipped” the drawing and drew it as if her left lang was the one in front and covering things up.  At some point I decided I wanted her to be more barefoot-ish, and such.  Generally keeping her three-part skirt and turned the scroll into a scroll case since it is fancier.

There’s some feedback I got and I tweak a bit.  Mostly how her legs and feet are arranged, and also expanding her wings.  I also tweaked the way her skirt goes off screen (it doesn’t now) so that when I get around to making a desktop version of it (I have this for all of them so far in waiting) I will not have to redraw it.

After this I went and made the compass behind her.  This one was my first of these symbols done in a program called Affinity Design.  It’s basically an Illustrator alternative that while I admit is not as powerful, Adobe Illustrator CC doesn’t actually seem to want to work on my large monitor desktop and so even though I can afford splitting CC with my cousin, well, I can’t actually use it.  So $50 to Affinity it is.  Anyhow, after soem playing with vectors got this.  If I were to change anything I would have probably “broken up” the circle ot have compass hash marks all over it to show degrees more clearly.

Next is flats, and the fun those bring.  I actually had her in a darker outfit originally, but ended up settling on the inverted trim/main color for the outfit I think it worked out in the end quite nice.  What happened I think is that the darker colors look better for flats, but the lighter ones took better to shading and gradients.  Just my pet theory there. Also trimming-up where some muscle lines are and such. Then put it together with the compass.

Next is fancy stuff.  Get the background all starred-up using Photoshop tricks and whatnot.  I then went in and started shading, adding muscles and all that, and hair texture, and the fun stuff.  This part is always tedious.  I think I spent a few hours on her abdominal area alone.

Then I got into fancy stuff.  I went in and added gradients about to her body, backlighting, all that stuff.  There’s a lot of layers here but some fun stuff to think on were he rhair, the wings, her face, and the glowing everywhere were all separate layers.  You start managing a lot of Masks and weird blending stuff as you do this.  

Highlights were pretty important here with so many different textures.  I also wanted to do the “shiny “ look since that seems to just work with anime skin like her’s.  And it also helped give some volume to the light off her wings, weirdly.  Something I’m pretty happy with is that I didn’t have to do a lot of tonal correction here.  It’s all pretty nice a curve of color, probably because how much the yellows and oranges pop against the background.

And there we have it.  Probably a bit over-produced in areas, but whatever.  This one was fun.  I am happy with things like her expression, the glow, and also how to (to me at least) she’s an evolution of the design I hand in the 2013 drawing.  I think also working on this series is teaching me some fun tricks with Clip Studio, which is a bonus.

Hope you folks enjoy and see you on Mars next, probably.

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Newest in the Incarna series I have been working on.  Similar process to before: Sketch on paper, sketchin Sketchable, ink and color in Clip Studio.  Had some help from Ang of the @theuncrucified in getting some of her anatomy a bit more on point.  And also did something a bit new with making the symbol in the background in Affinity Design (an Illustrator alternative program) rather than just trying to build one in Painter.

She’s also a ways more moe than the other Incarna.  I regret nothing.

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Creating Jupiter

This to make some green (art).

At this point I more or less have a bit of a system with these.  So first thing I do is well, take the original drawing I did.  What did I like of it, what are elements to keep, that sort of thing.  This is the picture from back in 2013 then:

Key things here that I think were wroth keeping are the cloak, the robes overall and I wanted to also get the measuring stick in there.  She also here has notably long but not-as-long-as-Venus for her hair, and the smirk going down. This was the big thing when I designed this character was that I actually didn’t like how Jupiter was depicted a lot in Exalted 2e.  She had this overly serious look wiht this stupid hooded cloak thing and for some reason it never clicked.  I liked more this idea of the goddess of secrets having a bit more whimsy to her and so the smile had to stay.

So in sketching I wanted something cute/whimsy going on.  The original drawing is very “Here I am!” to it, but I wanted to convey someone doing the “I know something you don’t” look.  I also wanted soemthing to work with a different symbol behind her as the eyes just were not doing it.  So sketching away in Sketchable and got this:

I at this point decided some form of the Eye of Providence was what I was gonna use, and overall I kept most of her outfit about the same, with maybe more keys in the future and such.  

Next step was inking and this, like in a lot of pictures I do, end up greatly changing things.  Her pose ended up changing quite a bit and I reintroduced the measuring stick to help with the length of her limbs.  For a moment I also had her with a short bob haircut instead of the long hair here, but it made the picture look super empty.  I kind of discovered a bit of the pain in the ass with Jupiter to try and avoid with future drawings in this series is that she needed more props somehow to get it more interesting.  I thought for a second of maybe adding a couple birds or something in the pose of the Guardians constellation to do that but never got to it.  (Give her a mix of Odin and Athena basically with owl familiars).

Fun factoid here, the teeth of the keys on her dress are actually based on astrological signs for the Galilean moons.  I think given the cahnce I could see all sorts of symbology with Jupiter and the number four with tying her to Odin and Jupiter but that’s not the goal of this project so some other time.

Inking done went to flats.  This is where things get a bit weird.  Green is a really weird color since it goes odd with human skin. and with the blue-purple background of this series so far. But I managed to get something working.  I think the big thing i snot using too bright a green and using yellow to bridge to the pinker flesh tones and so make it look a little less chaotic.  

Next step is blocking in shading as well as getting the background in.  Background was made by the same methods of usual via Photoshop Noise and layer tweaks, but I think I’m getting a hang of making the skies in these look more well, “starry”.  

The symbol I wanted for her bounced between the Eye of Providence or the Web of Wyrd.  I settled on the Eye eventaully for I think just fitting conspiracies and such better for her. I also tried to combine them a couple times, including at one point having the Web in the middle.  Maybe someday I’ll revisit it.  I had the Jupiter astrological symbol in a triangle to help it look more the cliche Eye and Pyramid stuff too for fun.

Next is shading Jupiter herself. What I wanted to do was break-up her dress though.  It’s a lot of just swaths of green and I wanted it to look like it had wrinkles and flow to it at least.

And finally, gradients, shading and level adjustments.  This one came together in the end alright.  Biggest thing I think is her boobs kept changing shape.  But I think the final version works out alright.

I think given more time to work on this I would have broken her cloak up a bit more and maybe even redone her dress a bit.  Something in me wishes I had like some bit of her legs showing a bit to break up the robes and make her a bit sexy.  I also wish I could have gotten another prop or two in there.  But is what it is.  Still was fun as always.  Smarmy goddesses are the bes tones.

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Another revisit of one of the Incarna from Exalted.  This time Jupiter, goddess of secrets and all that fun stuff. Same general process:  Sketchable drawings, Clip Studio inking and coloring.  Fun stuff.

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Sketch Marathon

asuSo this is a few sketches I have had laying about that I haven’t managed to generate any completed pictures for.  IN case folks wanna see some of what I might brainstorm or try-out might look like, because sure.

Starmetal 

This is an attempt to do what I see starmetal in Exalted looking like.  It’s described as kind of being steel with a rainbow sheen to it.  The main thing to me is whether it’s like a CD or if it should have more texture like a hologram.  SO this was just trying things out.  I kind of like the dappled/broken-up look myself, but it takes a bit of work.  Still, I think if I end up doing some Sidereals in the near future you’ll probably see this as the material.

Casual Girl

I uploaded this on DA back in February (link) but didn’t post it here.  Basically goofing off in Clip Studio, not feeling like doing a full picture and spending like an hour drawing and seeing what I could get after warming up.  Went purposefully for something modern since I do plenty of fantasy arts.

Incarna Family Portrait

So I had plans to do this more elaborately but I found myself thinking “How the fuck do I color this?” and realized I should back burner it some.  But it did lead to my current project of doing the Incarna, and if you notice the designs for the two I have done so far still hold (though Venus’s robe is open in the latest one for reasons).  I probably won’t end up using this specific sketch if I were to revisit it, but I think I’ll keep some of the bits like the characters interacting more.  I need to find something to do with the four Maidens in the back though for that.

And yeah I don’t gender-swap Luna like a lot of pics do.  I am fine with my goddess yuri couple being that I guess.

Jackal-Killer and Her Oni Redux

This is a remake of one of my oldest drawings I have on my DA page.  I am more or less trying to do the same setup of tiny necromancer chick and her giant war golem/nemissary dude behind her.  I just never got around to inking and coloring it.  I think I might work from scratch on this if I were to do it again, but at the same time I’m happy with her overall pose and the composition.  Just that it looks a tad boring I think in context of what I have of late.  Need to break it up with less just characters standing around.

That’s it for now.  Just highlighting that yes, I’m alive and whatnot.

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Character design I did recently for an Exalted game I was invited to.  Didn’t end up being able to play her, but still was fun to do random character who’s flintlock-styled flame thrower had a bayonet attached to it.

Done in Clip Studio Paint using my Mobile Studio Pro, plus a bit of light touch-ups on the desktop.

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Creating Venus

Another bit on how I went and created an illustration.

This picture continues the want to redo my original pictures of the Incarna from the RPG Exalted.  In doing this one, I wanted to keep with some of the ideas in the original picture I did with Saturn and make it have aspects that look like it’s a coherent series of pictures.  This being said, things did shift a bit.  I think her proportions are a tad different from Saturn (less bobble-headed) and I think it’s my choice to show her outfit how it was that did it.  I’ll get to that later.

Anyhow, for reference, the original illustration that this is working with is this one here:

There’s a few things that motivated this one originally.  The first was a sort of glittery star motif to her robes, a relaxed look, a pretty sexy pose, very long hair and little ribbons floating around her.  That said, I think some things didn’t work out here that i wanted to do better in a pass through again.  She’s more cute that sexy here (which I think doesn’t fit how i see Venus).  And I think that while I like the qipao look to her outfit, it could have done more to look more relaxed/loose.  I also just kind of threw-together her “Halo” background symbol thing.  I thought Morning Star and so wanted to do a picture of that but it looks too much like a sun a result.  So I wanted to do something else.

First was figuring out her pose and I did some iteration, re-iteration and such.  I ended up settling on a few, plus some design ideas.  Have about half a dozen of those, but this sketch sort of summed things up nicely.  Note the goal for round eyes and her hair being a tad more whispy in this one.  Her outfit was a bit more qipao still too.

I really liked the one in the upper-right and went with something like that.  I think I could have done more with that particular pose but I got lost in the way I guess in the sketch.  I kind of liked it for having a pillar/thing she was leaning on too.  This would let me incorporate one of her symbols (the Pillar) into the drawing, which I couldn’t do before.

This done, I hashed out some pillar designs and such.  Originally I had this idea of it covered in flowers and prayer strips too, which looked rad but got way bogged down I think.  You’ll see this in many of the early steps here.

From here I moved to Clip Studio and did most the rest of the necessary work.  I started with some inking of Venus herself, plus putting the Pillar on its own layer with some Masks at work let me work on everything in tact.  This added a lot of extra back-and-forth but it saved a shitload of time later on.  So learn to use Masks folks.  They’re your friends.

The censorship ribbon isn’t quite done but I was working more or less with Barbie anatomy anyhow since this isn’t meant to be pornographic, just kind of eluding to the fact that Venus is sexy.  The thing that slowed things down a lot here were her legs, though.  I wanted to get her knees in there since otherwise they kind of got infinitely long in a way that annoyed me.  You can see the detail on the pillar here too is pretty absurd.  It gets worse.

With a simple gradient background I start to blcok in the flats.  The ribbons have some tangents but those are fixable later.  Since Venus’ color is blue I wanted that to be the main color of her outfit, but have her and the trim be warm to make them stand out a bit.  I also start working on her symbol here, which for this one is a clam shell, referencing Venus on Earth and the birth of Aphrodite in the Theogeny.  

I also did a new starscape for this picture specifically, complete with constellations.  I think I could have made the constellations a tad brighter, but in the end, it looks fine.

I then introduce the transparency effect of her ribbon, plus the background.  I tweaked the shell at this point too, since the square for the symbol isn’t working like it did for Saturn’s omega.  I go with an oval frame this time, since it actually creates a neat pearl-like shape to fit the shell anyhow.

Next is shading.  I start with mostly blocking in the base colors here.  This includes replacing black lines with colored one sand such.  This is important for things like giving shape to her breasts, giving the angle of her leg positioning more than just implied depth and all that.  I also introduce the wrinkles in her robes, which are simpler than Saturn I admit for being more ro less open and straight. The Charms on the pillar though are becoming a mess at this point. If I wanted to keep things simple I could have stopped here to be honest.  I like how a lot of color and anatomy look in this flat style, but well, I press on wanting gradients.  Because I’m crazy.

Gradients more or less consume the rest of the drawing.  I give her a softer figure, I add texture to the pillar.  I get rid of the Charms since they’re causing too many tangents and too busy in the area there anyhow. When it all comes through, we end up with the final picture mor orless.  Only took like forty layers and half a dozen masks.

Some things I think of note is I had to tweak a bit at the last minute.  I tapered her waist a bit more than in the earlier picture to add more a swoosh to her figure.  And as you can see, the talismans are gone from the Pillar.  It makes it much simpler to color, but I think makes the picture look a lot cleaner too.  I also “thickened” the patterning on her ribbon in front of her since well, keeping her SFW.  

And that’s that really.  Fun project in the end and I think good work with anatomy and all that.  I could have done better, but something to maybe try my hand at again with this character in a while yet.

For a bonus, here’s the Pillar on its own.  Two shading layers were used just to let me do this one. For anyone curious, the text reads, “’Love endures,’ she said.”

And stuff.

[blaqueandstuff]

Continuing my tries at the Incarna from Exalted.  This time Venus, the one who’s most like her Greco-Roman version, plus a lot of blue. Sketched in Sketchable, mostly rest done in Clip Studio save for generated bits like the stars and the cloud effect in the background, which used Photoshop.

Making-of coming next.

And stuff