Monthly Redraw: March

Well friends, it's time once more for me to revisit some old art and have a crack at redrawing it using all the skills I've picked up in between. This month I chose an old picture I drew in University, back when I was first learning to illustrate digitally. My style at the time was often described as "half-anime half-fashion illustration" which I didn't consider a bad thing, although in hindsight the constant onslaught of waifish characters probably said a lot about me. I actually picked up digital drawing quite quickly, I suppose it helped that most of my drawing time before that had either been in moving vehicles or discreetly in the middle of classes, so I was fairly used to looking elsewhere while drawing. However the access to precious CTRL + ALT  + Z function turned me into a lazy, less precise lineartist. Seriously, so lazy. Looking at these pictures now I cringe at how many spots I missed when colouring them. Eep. 

So here it is: circa 2011, The Life and Death of Mo Black. 

This was meant to be a teaser cover illustration for a comic/book I wanted to write. But I can't for the life of me remember ever drawing these girls any other time or even writing anything about them. And as someone who remembers almost every single story she's almost written that can only mean one thing. I didn't actually do anything more than draw this one picture. 

Ah, there's so much to say about this: the thigh gaps, the amount of cleavage, the weird cut-outs in the clothes, the poses, the generic designs. I was young. I was naive. I didn't know any better and to be honest my only point of reference at the time was the vast array of comic books in our university "library" (it was more of a comic book store with the occasional technical book thrown in) and we all know how problematic comic book cover art tends to be. I'd also like to point out that this was about the time I learnt about textures and blending options and the like. That's how we get a completely irrelevant textured background folks. 

 

So here's the redraw. ahh, better. I remember that each girl had a specific role, knight, archer, mage. So I decided to illustrate that a little more clearly. It felt good to redesign the girls outfits and have a little fun playing with shape and restricted colouring. And I feel so much joy looking at Kahli (the knight) now that she doesn't have that headache-inducing red hair. I'll do a full character comparison below.

This time I made the background texture myself, I've been working on creating my own textures in order to keep my stuff a bit more original. Another interesting point of comparison is the change in signature. Back in the day I used to handsign about half of my illustrations (I forgot to sign the majority) with a boring L. Morrison and sometimes the year. These days I use a simple signature that I turned into a stamp so that it's super easy for me to pop a signature on all my digital work, plus this signature is so easy that I remember to add it to my sketches and traditional drawings as well. 

 I left the cutout in Mo's shirt but made mental justifications in claiming that to be the official uniform of the mage class (unisex ha ha ha) and that the chest tattoo is a form of identification amongst the mages. I'm considering doodling a few other mages just to illustrate the uniform. Now, down to the business of comparisons. I loved the overall colour scheme for Mo, and some aspects of her outfit were worth keeping, the bell sleeves seemed very academic mage appropriate, the high collar, the boots. I wanted to link her tattoos and the colour of her magic with her eye colour hence the touches of blue in this otherwise cream and blue brown colourscheme. As to her hair, well. I was playing a lot of Final Fantasy X-2 (which makes a lot of design elements make so much more sense) but I still like the concept of it, only now it's not blowing around in an imaginary wind. 

 Andrea's pose was probably the most problematic of all the poses in the original pictures. Side/tip boob, butt shot, seductive over the shoulder looking. No, please no. My intentions for this character were simple, I wanted her to be the mysterious lone ranger type. She doesn't say much, you don't know much about her or where she's come from, etc. None of what I drew originally really says that. Instead it says, sexy potentially elvish archer lady. So in my redesign I decided that rather than changing the pose I would attempt to redraw it the way I had originally intended. I wanted a strong stance, a serious expression, a hint of the characters agility and silence. I think I captured that. A big part of changing the perception came from changing the costume, rather than having her in excessively tight clothes with unecessary shoulder cutouts I'd put her in something a little looser and more distinctive. A serendipitous type had me write her name as Andera in the photoshop file and it stuck. I decided to hint at her background by giving her a middle eastern appearance, seeing her as a desert ranger, well equipped to face sandstorms and enemies alike. I want to note that I have absolutely no intention of offending anyone with this design, her headwear isn't in any way religiously affiliated, it is born from geographical necessity. 

 Kahli: big talking, sword swinging queen of my heart. I admit, the read hair was a mistake. A terrible, colour scheme interrupting mistake. I remember that I wanted Kahli to be a HBIC, this lady commanded men, owned a bunch of ships and properties, had travelled extensively and wasn't afraid to fight dirty. And somewhere in the recesses of my mind I remember that I had originally imagined her as dark skinned but had failed to draw her that way because in 2011 I was problematic. Speaking of problems, wow, that cleavage, so sensible for a female warrior. In remembering that Kahli was both a fighter and a businesswoman I wanted to redesign her costume to reflect that. This was probably my favourite redesign. the little jacket, the high waisted pants, the simple colours. Be still my heart. Also I feel this pose helps illustrate her character 500x better than the old one. So casual, so powerful. Just.. just don't ask her how she lost her eye. 

So there it is. It's amazing the difference a few years can make. While I know that my style has simplified immensely it's still the culmination of all those years of work. In 2011 I never would have been able to communicate my intentions through such a simple art style, Also I was going through a steampunk phase so the more details the better.

Comment below if you'd like to see more of these girls in the future. 

xx
Lily.