Renfri from "The Witcher" -- Patreon Exclusive February 2020 (Patreon)

Renfri takes some time off from her vengeful hunt for the wizard, Stregobor, and decides to air out her feet for you.

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Sorry about the little delay, people, but I finally cranked out the final variants and details to get this piece ready! I was thinking about doing a background, but honestly, it would have slogged me down, as I was already short on time. The vest took me way longer than I anticipated it would, with all the symmetrical, repetitive details. The costume designed for Emma Appleton originally had these shoulder pads that matched the vest, which they decided to remove in the final on-screen sequence. I decided to keep them, since they added a bit more of an imposing silhouette.

I'm starting to slowly move away from 100% cell-shading, too. Cell-shading actually takes really long, as every shadow shape needs to be precisely hand-drawn, whereas softer, more natural and realistic shadows can simply be done with a soft-edged brush. I haven't completely eliminated cell-shading, but I've instead used it to convey harder, darker shadows, on more reflective surfaces, whereas materials like Renfri's red shirt conveys its natural volume with softer, more realistic shadows. The problem with cell-shading too, is that you can't convey smooth gradations in tone with it; it makes painting skin such a pain, which is why I'd pretty much eliminated using it completely when it comes to skin.

The feet were fun to do on this one, as the toes are pretty spread, so the feet don't wrinkle too harshly. I was thus able to be a lot softer with the shadows and color distinctions in the soles. Much like the cell-shading, I've been trying to move away from using black lineart in the finer details, especially for skin; it helps to make the face and feet in particular look much more natural, and smooth to the touch, not to mention realistic.

Please let me know what you all think of this one! Which is your favorite variant?