Ada Wong Tickles Ashley -- Exclusive 7/24 (Patreon)

While Leon is off taking care of business, he leaves Ashley all alone in the dining room of Salazar's castle, to spare her the danger of getting kidnapped by the sinister Los Illuminados zealots. Or so he thinks she's alone, as the femme fatale Ada Wong drops by to pay the President's daughter a visit.

In Leon's absence, the seductive Ada Wong manages to convince Ashley into some distracting, stress-relieving activities. Ashley manages to bluff her way through not liking the playful engagement, but it's all the more enjoyable to get the truth tickled out of her... c;

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I wanted to challenge myself with this piece, as doing the same thing gets quite repetitive. I decided to go for a two-character piece, which is rare for Patreon content, featuring two of my beloved Resident Evil ladies. I started out with the idea of Ada tickling Ashley, in a way that featured both of their bodies, as opposed to cutting Ada out of frame. When it comes to poses, especially those featuring two characters, I like to pull pose references from videos, since they contain an innate sense of movement. Once I got the pose, I just ran through my mental library of locations in the game (Resident Evil 4 Remake) that would be fitting for the rough narrative, and would be fun to draw.

Seeing as how Ada doesn't show up until the castle section, that's what I settled on. Luckily, I had a save file in the very area that I wanted to use, so I loaded up the game, and took a bunch of screenshots. It doesn't look like too much right here, but a lot of work went into the background. I used closeups to trace out the precise textures on the curtains, and then created a repeating pattern in Photoshop, which I could warp as needed. It's barely visible here, but behind the figures and the table (all of which are removable elements in the file), I also extracted and replicated the patterns for the wood paneling on the lower half of the walls. The red herb and bird statue are also fully-detailed, despite being mostly obscured by Ada.

While this kind of thing can take a lot of time, and doesn't always show up in the final image, I feel that it's important to do. It's important to have a background element that is separated from the characters, not only because it's easier to draw in perspective without having to worry about figures throwing off your visualization, but also because sometimes you need to move the figures, or other elements, around, and have isolated "modules" in layer groups will allow that to happen.

I also find that doing these sorts of things generate such an incredible boon to skill and experience with each new piece. Focusing on a single task (such as creating a detailed background), improves my skill by a lot, and also allows me to do the same thing faster and better next time.