Designing the Piece

Having never really drawn people before, this commission was both fun to do, and also a good challenge. I spent a lot of time looking up many different references for poses that I felt would fit what the client wanted; an image of their Final Fantasy XIV character together with their spouse’s character from the same game. Not only did I have to reference people, but I also naturally had to get references of the two characters I was to be drawing!

In the end, I decided on a cute “snuggly” pose for the two characters, as well as featuring the cute and rabbit-like “Carbuncle” critters you see on the shoulders of the characters. It seemed fitting: Carbuncles are the clients favourite critters in the game, and they even themed their guild around them! Once the general idea was established, drafting and sketching began. I fiddled with the sketch a lot longer than I should have done, and it took a while until I was happy with it. But, once I was, I presented it to the client and was given the go ahead to continue! After sketching came the lineart - I elected to use black line for the characters, and then coloured lines for the carbuncles so they would pop a little. After the client approved of the lineart, the third stage was to apply the flat colours to the image - this was probably where I had the most fun! Then the final stage after flats was, of course, to apply shading to the image. This was a fun stage too; the carbuncle critters happen to glow quite brightly in the source material. While I didn’t want them to be as bright as they appear in Final Fantasy XIV, I still wanted them to glow a little bit, and so added some subtle hints of yellow and cyan where it felt appropriate to do so. That said, because the carbuncles are little glowing beacons of light, they didn’t require shading of their own, which allowed them to stand out just a little more without dominating the finished product entirely.

The Stages of Progress: