Mission Commission: Phase One!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

As you guys are likely aware at this point, Kingdom Hearts 3 has finally been released, much to the joy of many a fan of the series. It has been a rather long time in coming - over a decade at this point! Still, our patience has been rewarded.

So what has this got to do with the title, you may ask.

Well, true, the fact that the game has come out doesn't really have much to do with today, but the subject of Kingdom Hearts is part of what I'm going to be talking about. Rather, roleplays based within the Kingdom Hearts universe. I have been asked to do a commission of a character that is being used in one of these Roleplays. The character itself is actually a custom character in a Final Fantasy game that was brought into the RP - which makes sense, since Kingdom Hearts does involve Square Enix characters - and had designed a keyblade for them, and asked if I could do a full body image of the character with the keyblade.

I was given a selection of the characters outfits and some reference for certain features that are part of her race (as she is humanoid, but not human, featuring patches of scales, horn-like appendages instead of ears and a dragon-like tail) - Au Ra, as it's called - and the accessory that gives her what appears to be a halo and asked me to do some sketched poses to pick from.

Firstly, I sketched her face, if only to get the feel for the character:

While the head accessory was as simplistic as possible - mostly a placeholder so I knew where it would be, I wanted to be sure I could pull off her hairstyle and those horns. 

Once I was sure I could draw her face, I picked one of the White Mage outfits - partly because I liked the keyblade design that had been made to go with it, and made two poses for her. The first pose being more preparing for battle, while the other showcased her more relaxed, carefree personality.

Admittedly, I did like the first a tad more, if only because I liked the face, and it doesn't look like I'm just attempting to hide her hands. lol. However, the keyblade was a bit shorter than it should have been (It being modeled after a white mage staff and could be used like a staff as well as a blade) and it didn't particually do the character's personality justice. As such, design number two will be going the fully detailed line art and colour route, and will also have the halo added to it as well - something that I didn't add in any of the sketches since it's more 'energy' than anything physical.

I'm still working with the client right now to make sure that the finished image will be up to standard, and I likely wont show the final thing until it is done and in the client's hands, but I will let you know how the job goes once it's done. :) Who knows, I might just finish off the first one for fun!

Until next time!

Tara