Commission - Bàs and Teàrlag (Patreon)

"Must you always make such a mess?"

This commission was a really fun one! I loved the more serious/epic fantasy look of the characters in the reference sheets the commissioner provided (visible cut-up and scattered all over my canvas in the second-to-last image), so I tried to go for that sort of atmosphere in this colored sketch. Teàrlag, the character on the right, in particular is the sort of character I don't draw very often, but love the look of: they're very sophisticated and imposing with those swooping horns and long braid, in their big admiral's coat and fancy outfit. The contrast with Bàs, with her simpler outfit, messy fur, and big smashy overkill chain-wrapped cleaver is great. These character designs are just 💯✨👌 and I had a great time drawing them.

There's also a more detailed process for this one, even though it's "just" a colored sketch, because I remembered to take lots of screenshots! Enjoy the journey from messy chunky scribbles to cleaner, tidier linework (and the lines by themselves in the last image, because I'm really happy with how they came out).

Sometimes, to get the 3D forms of a character clearer in my head, I don't start with sketching an outline, but by instead blocking in their whole body with solid color and then going in with the eraser to define the shapes. Changing my thinking about a drawing from a 2D additive process (drawing lines) to a 3D subtractive one (carving away at a "solid" mass), like sculpting instead of drawing, helps me problem-solve my way towards the look I want. You can see evidence of this in the first image-- both characters started off as blobs of orange, then became hollowed-out shapes with contour lines to help me visualize how they take up space.