An Invitation to Smash... (Patreon)

Note: This post has been made public for presentation purposes.  

I spent more time working on this than I wanted, but since it's this week's illustration for Early Access, that's okay. You deserve all the nice things. Probably.

I've never played Dragon Quest 3 to it's completion, but Roto is probably my favourite of the DQ heroes. She was introduced in DQ3, but the first two games are also a part of the Edrick Trilogy (Erdrick is the title given to the hero in the North American releases). Besides Simon Belmont, Roto is the only other character I REALLY wanted to see appear in Smash Bros.

There are a few older sketches of her in the Sketchie Book Brellom books on Gumroad and inside the Dropbox Archive too. Though some of which are also here on Patreon, under the Dragon Quest tag.

Technique

The rendering technique is close to my typical approach to watercolour-esque shading, but there's a firmer base of colours underneath the shadow masses -- opposed to the white of the paper. 

The shadows are handled slightly more like standard cel shading, but you can see my typical technique of using negative space between the brush strokes for highlights in the hair, crown, and cape. I hope this contrast in surface material is cool. There are some subtle gradients here and there too, most noticeably on the skirt. I hope it doesn't clash!

The background window resembles the shape of the battle scene in Dragon Quest 2, with the actual landscape being inspired by a background in DQ3.

Afterword

I have an inclination to do some doodles based on content I expect to appear at E3, or at least, just the stuff I'm interested in. But art can take a long time, so an early start is very helpful! I couldn't have drawn this during the presentation... The rest of the E3 doodles should probably be much quicker.

This is going to be really awkward if Roto isn't announced for Smash Bros...

Don't forget to eat & sleep!