Wattson Kupo Power -- Exclusive (Patreon)

After a hard match in the Apex games, you are your duo teammate Wattson get to relaxing in her lab at the top of the Pylon POI. You sit around and wait for the dropship to pick you up and take you home, and Wattson congratulates you on your shared success -- she also decides to relax by kicking off her stuffy shoes, and plopping her warm feet up on the desk in front of you.

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I have to restrain myself from doing Wattson and Apex drawings all the time, but since it's been a while since the last one... c;

One of the reasons that my pieces take a bit of extra time is that many of the elements in the piece are isolated layer groups, complete in their own respect. For example, you could turn off the "Wattson" layer group in the Photoshop file, and the background would be fully-complete behind her -- no messy, unfinished spots behind her. The same thing usually goes for both the head, and the feet, of the character.

There's a few reasons for this; one is that items that are more likely to be subject to adjustments need to be isolated. I have shown some progress updates on this before, but with the head for example, I start with a straightforward set of layers: a sketch layer, a lineart layer, and then various color layers for the skin, hair, etc. The sketch of the head is done while looking at various references, but once the head is inked and colored, there's always some last tweaks that need to be done, and those tweaks make a world of a difference. No matter how precise the sketch, lineart, or colors are, something is always going to be a little off. The head might be slightly asymmetric and need to be skewed; the eyes might be too high or too low on the face; the mouth might look too flat; and, of course, the whole head might be too big or small. All of these details could be fixed with individual layers, but there comes a point where it's easier to just duplicate the head group (lineart and colors), flatten that, and then just edit that directly. For example, if I want to move the eyes farther apart, I would have to select the lineart for JUST the eyes, then the sclera, irises, and shadow layer, and move them -- not easy to do all at once. When I flatten, I just lasso the eyes, move them, and quickly clean up with the smudge or brush tools.

There's also a lot of "softening" that goes into the head/face after I flatten the head layer group. My style relies heavily on black lineart to define outlines and form, and while it often results in a crisp, bold, cartoony style, it can sometimes lock you into mistakes once you're already coloring -- mistakes that you couldn't previously see in the black-and-white. Softening isn't just about fixing mistakes -- there's a smoothness and gradation to facial features that make them pleasant to look at, especially those of pretty gals, and dark lineart can sometimes lock you into something quite harsh and flat. After I fix big issues, like moving the eyes up or down, or fixing the symmetry of the face, I will go in with the smudge and blur tool and just soften things up. The lineart of the eyes will be smudged into little points to create soft eyelashes; the edges of the nose and mouth will be smudged to eliminate the hard black lineart, resulting in a smoother transition between skin shadows, and a softer perception of depth in the face. The hairline, if visible, will be "notched" into place with a smudge tool, instead of having a hard dividing line between skin and hair. One of the finishing touches is just going in with the blur tool and tapping the eyes, mouth, and a few other small areas on the head.

There's a lot of work that goes into creating all of my art, and it's the same effort whether I'm doing Patreon content or commissions. I'm so thankful for all of you wonderful friends who support me and my work whenever you can, as I know times are tough for everyone right now.  I hope you all like the piece, and I can't wait to see what you all think of the next one!

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I am taking commissions for late March -- hit me up and we can get something started for you. Here is my price list (this is not 100% set in stone -- remember, you get a bit of a discount as a patreon member!).

https://www.deviantart.com/empiricalsmut/art/EmpiricalSmut-Commissions-994758562