For the longest time, I couldn't quite fathom how to draw chibis. Whenever I did, they looked *really* odd.

But then I found the holy grail of chibi drawing: BEANS. BEANS ARE HERE TO DELIVER US!

So, the torsos are beans. That left some stylistics choices to make regarding limbs - thin or thicc, short or long - and the heads/faces. For the eyes I dug deep in my treasure chest of art styles and pulled out some Arina Tanemura, gosh, I love how she draws eyes!

I'll need to draw a couple dozen more chibis to really solidify my process, but the Recentia cast were willing guinea pigs for the first round! (They'll inevitably end up in the coming rounds, too... so yeah).

#ocs #kyu #ayira #wallace #jonathan #characterillustration #characterart #femaleoc #recentia #magic

While I was on vacation, I ordered a new sketchbook. It is a pretty sketchbook. And it arrived just a couple of days after I returned, so the timing I went for worked out nicely!
And then I felt intimidated by the sketchbook.
Well, I finally tackled it. If that first page is out of the way, it can only get better. Right?
Now the bar for this sketchbook is set high.... this is going to be a lot of fun, lol!
I decided on a stained glass aesthetic for the first page, featuring Kyu and Ayira in their respective windows. Both searching for their place in the world, as neither got what they expected.


Kyu's memory was wiped clean and it's looking less likely by the day that she'll ever recover the person she once was, so she has to find out who she is now and how that reflects on what she is or isn't doing.

Meanwhile, Ayira grew up in the shadow of expectations she can't meet anymore, since the powers she was supposed to inherit went to Kyu. Who is she outside the responsibilities she thought she'd have?

And frankly, I find myself in a similar situation. Less fate-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders, but similar in that I'm not quite sure where I'm going anymore.

I've been lacking a long-term goal for myself and my art ever since I finished Soul's Journey. And I think that shows in what I've been doing since. I've meandered a lot. I grew as an artist, which is good. I can now more comfortably solve artistic problems. But where I am going with everything, I'm not sure.
For now, I'm glad I found the cause of my discontent, it gives me something to work with. The solution won't come over night, that I know, but I can feel my way there :)
This illustration got unexpectedly deep for me.

There's also a process video on youtube: https://youtu.be/FfjG3asYuJY

#Kyu #characterart #characterillustration #oc #femaleoc #Ayira #alcoholmarkers #sketchbook