Asuka (Patreon)

Hey fam! I desperately needed to make something for fun, and I'm on a major NGE kick right now thanks to picking up the Anima light novels. So I decided to draw my bias, haha.

I ran into quite a few snags working on this. For one, I recently switched back to working on desktop with an old-school tablet (In this case, a new Huion in the largest size available). The main reason for this is pain reduction - working on any screen, regardless of size, puts me in a stooped posture that exacerbates my nerve problems and wears my whole body out so much faster. I find with a tablet in my lap, screen an arm's length away and at proper height, I can draw a lot longer, and a lot more relaxed.

However I had to get used to things again - the pressure sensitivity is excellent, but it expresses differently than the Apple Pencil (which is still the best stylus, period, in my opinion.) So  the brushes I'm used to worked a bit differently, and I had to get used to that. I also found myself getting lost in trying to perfect the form, resulting in a steady degradation of the more clean, expressive silhouette I started with. There's nothing wrong with detail or complexity, but I really enjoy keeping things simple when I can, so I had to revise multiple times to get back on track.

I also realized I was making way too much extra work for myself by attempting to also do a nude alt. As fun as those are, I'm pressed for time right now, so I decided to scrap it and go right into painting the plugsuit. This turned out to be a great decision anyway because I had been too shy with my values on the nude - there's hardly any contrast. Starting over gave me the opportunity to be bolder, to stick to more opaque brushwork and really focus on shape language. (I grabbed a screenshot of the unfinished nude for you to enjoy tho!)

As you can see I'm definitely painting a more mature Asuka - the Anima books describe the way her figure fills out as she transitions into young adulthood, and I wanted to run with that as I painted her more as a late-teens-early-twenties woman. I had a lot of fun putting in the creases and specular highlights on her boobs, lol.

All in all I'm really happy with this. I'm planning a matching Rei later this week, which I'm going to turn into a pair of stickers that will accompany the re-opening of my Etsy shop. More on that as I have it.