I Tend To Draw Everything With The Same Soft Pillow-like Texture, So Painting Different Surfaces Is Important

I tend to draw everything with the same soft pillow-like texture, so painting different surfaces is important practice for me ~ If you want to learn more about how I do this, check out my tutorial on painting different surfaces over on patreon!

I love this man and his charming smile. The hair looks wonderful, it looks so silky. Absolutely in love with the artwork.

Kazai is finally done! This was a fun one to work on, especially with the pose and the flowy clothes. They're based on the first design on his design sheet but uh, I modified it a bit to be more flowy and I forgot to add the embroidery detailing only to realize the fact after I finished everything else. Oops? So I tried to compensate via giving him a neat earring. Oops?

His entry in the Trilogy™ I'm planning (Kashi, Kazai, Ayunnen) is supposed to contrast against his sister's in that she's dark and settled and solid while he's a flowy free whirlwind in motion— while still bearing some resemblance with her (familial resemblance because they're siblings, they wear their boots in a similar way).

Okay so, I planned this, right? I drew Kashi facing left because whenever I tried drawing her from that side it tended to look really bad and I was determined to make at least one attempt turn out nice, trying to draw her from her “bad” angle. And I did! And I'm super proud of that. But I planned, to have the black-haired siblings facing away from each other, flanking Ayunnen who is facing the screen. And since I drew Kashi facing left, it's only natural to draw Kazai facing right.

The problem.

The problem is that.

Kazai's very recognizable tattoos that I specifically placed to make him look feral, they're on the side of his face that'd be obscured.

Ah, yes, the consequences of my own stubborn hubris.

Also the braid killed me.

Anyways enjoy this one, and please look forward to the upcoming Ayunnen!

Bonus closeup:

The trio put together! I'm not stoked with how the background turned out— FireAlpaca starts acting weird and laggy whenever I use a brush size larger than 100— and blending and blurring these three backgrounds together took a brush size around 300 to see any significant effect sooooo. Yeah.

They're three of the so far six OCs introduced in my fic Winds of Wolfsong (soon to be seven to be eight to be— damn why does the cast keep expanding?!) (oh wait I know why, because Tanaka didn't provide me with enough characters from certain social classes to fill the gaps for the kind of story I want to tell, which isn't necessarily his fault, he wanted to tell a war epic, I wanted to tell a character and emotion driven story with themes of cooperation coexistence and community, how creation is sacred and way harder than destruction, which necessitates the appreciation of those outside of the nobility and warrior classes to shine light on the crafters and the servants, also magic plays a much bigger role both in the present and in the defeat of Zahhak which led me to fill in the gaps with even MORE OCs... damn), these three in particular debuted in the first chapter. From left to right are: Kashi (AU!Arslan's biological mother), Ayunnen (AU!Arslan's biological father, married to Kashi), and Kazai (Kashi's younger brother, AU!Arslan's biological uncle who makes a return in chapter 2).

Progress on the WIP! Finally! We haven't had reliable electricity for more than an hour these days (and even that hour isn't consecutive it's just a couple minutes scattered throughout the day because I guess the ministry of energy is just. pranking people or something I don't know) and it's been hell. I'll probably flip the canvas so that their scars are facing us, the screen, later even though it'll probably make things harder for me, I'm dreading shading Hilmes' scars, but I think it'd be appropriate to showcase their mirroring and Hilmes' growth of feeling comfortable going maskless even we beyond the screen aren't being shielded from it? I hope that made sense.

I haven't decided what year the coronation would take place, but I decided to draw Areyan in the hairstyle he would come to wear as an adult, if you've read my Areyan/Merlaine ficlet this would be the hairstyle he's wearing there too, I based it off of Azel Halgal from Otoyomegatari:

I've been planning this for a while and I'm so happy to finally be able to draw Areyan with this hairstyle!

I'm curious. Reblog this if you know how to cook

I don’t even care if it’s macaroni, ramen or those little bowls you stick in the microwave. Please, I need reassurance that most of the population on tumblr WOULDN’T STARVE TO DEATH if their parents couldn’t fix them food or they couldn’t go out to eat. 

Stubbornly drawing last night even without electricity and I was being assailed by an entire hoarde of mosquitoes.

I hate this hell country so much. Can't even have electricity consistently.

Progress so far!