Samus Aran -- After Hours (6/21 Exclusive) (Patreon)

I wanted to do something a little different with this piece. I often come at my drawings from the perspective that these are photos, often with the character modeling and fully-aware of the viewer. I decided to touch more on that with this piece, with the idea of our favorite Chozo-trained bounty hunter, Samus, posting a goofy and playful Instagram photo.

Very little of this piece was planned out from the start; it initially started out as the Instagram photo idea, but I wasn't sure who the character was going to be. I did the background, which kind of locked me into a modern or scifi theme, and only then did I decide to refine the loose figure sketch into Samus, wearing one of her less-common under-armour outfits. The drink in her hand was initially going to be a beer, to reflect Samus's rugged character, but changed it to wine, if only to get away with the silly caption.

I was very close to calling it finished, once the character was colored and all seemed good to go, but it was bugging me; it felt very flat. I ended up fixing Samus's face (profiles are tough), thickened the lineart to make the whole figure more visible, and heightened the contrast in the skin and the costume/top. Finally, I decided I wanted a more grunge Samus, so I added the streaking eyeliner and tattoos. Overall, I'm very happy with this piece.

Dirty variant will be coming later -- I'm not sure if I'm going to do a sock variant for this, or whether I'll just move on to the next Exclusive.

Let me know what you think of Samus in the comments below!