Aerith x Tifa Illustration Process Composition sketches (Patreon)

Someone asked recently about wanting to see more of my illustration process, so I figured this would be a great excuse to do it--with the Aerith x Tifa pinup. (Also I accidentally shared this with all patrons and process stuff is supposed to be just for Gold patrons, oops! Sorry for the mishap. Don't worry Goldies, you'll get your money's worth on the next ones. The rest of you wonderful people can just think of it as a happy bonus!)

My first concern is always composition, so I usually do a buncha little compositional sketches. The goal for me is to get the characters interacting with as many bends, weight shifts, interactions as possible. 

I love it when just the edge of a foot touches something else, or a hand squishes a breast, or hair drapes across shoulders. Bonus points if the characters can engage the space they're in, for they're in Aerith's garden, that means plants and rocks, maybe a bridge.

I love strong diagonal motion in compositions, so immediately i was attracted to this lovely spiral staircase of stepping stones. The game artists composed this environment to have a really nice foreground, middleground, background and I'm going to STEAL IT. <3

I love diagonal elements in compositions because they create immediate motion and dynamism. That staircase is gonna work for me just fine. My first sketch was meh, but the first one usually is. Not enough diagonals, figures too rigid and vertical no big deal, moving on.

I wanted more interaction between the two figures so I started using those stairs to give one some elevation, this is great because not only do I have this sweeping shape that creates movement in the composition, now one figure is higher than the other and that creates a relationship dynamic between the two characters. 

I thought it might be fun to put Aerith on top of Tifa, so for the third sketch I put Aerith grinding on Tifa's leg while she fingers her, but her head is still lower than Tifa's because her back arch, which still makes Tifa feel a bit more in control. I like those little handsy moments so I put Tifa's hand on top of Aerith to add more pressure. 

 I always feel like the more of these touching moments, the more charged the composition. Plus, I learned from better illustrators and painters to always put a twist in the figure if you can. I like how it makes them look kinda squirmy and both of them arching their backs toward each other I think makes it more erotic. Their bodies are trying to be closer together even though their actions kinda make that impossible. Plus, we want to see, so there's gotta be some space.

I drew a bunch of twirly arrows in here because I kinda think about composition as being a whirlpool where I'm trying to make a continuous circular flow, plus some fun bumps to make your eye have to jump around a bit. So the figures will zig zag a lot on top of the sweeping shape of the stairs, peaking in and out from foreground elements. I could also draw sketch #3 like this:

Compositional motions and gestures create pressure for your eyes to want to move wherever you want. So I think of every thing as being a chute or ladder that makes you keep looking and moving. When I find a funnel that doesn't lead anywhere, I make a note to fix it in the refined sketch that comes next.

Finally I'm always thinking about how to build depth into a scene. For one, if you wanna get out of drawing something in the midground, background, whatever, you just need some big foreground element to cover it up! (I'm a little lazy) Second, I like my figures to feel really grounded in a physical space, lots weight, so giving dimension for the scene lets them plant their asses or their feet or hands in several different places that anchor them for those juicy, squishy moments.

I hope you enjoy this deep dive into how I build an illustration! This part honestly is the hardest for me, I have worked really hard to try to understand composition in a way that makes sense. The good thing is once you've got a sketch you feel confident about, you know a lot of your problems are already solved.

Thank you all for your support!

Winton