wildering

✧ The making of - 'Teaser'

Added 2020-04-24 21:26:00 +0000 UTC

No .psd this time, unfortunately, since the final file is basically a single layer in which we've been painting.

But other then that - here you can find:
-step-by-step animation
-screenshots
-.zip file with all the images
-and a short story on how this piece came to be.

As this was a YCH, first thing we did after Kemper won the slot is change the base character's features to fit Kylani. We completely redrew her face, gave her a softer belly and made her breast just a tiny bit smaller. Then we drew her markings, fixed the light and, finally, added color.

At first we aimed for a somewhat simplistic background, and it worked well with a pure white feline we drew for the YCH piece, but Kylani's intricate design required something more thought-through to compliment her. So we decided to redraw some parts of the architecture, added finer details and, at the very end, drew in some beads on the foreground to add extra depth to the scene. We also decided on a more complex shading and added light beams hitting the girl from one side.

In all honesty, big changes like this happen regularly, even on later stages of production. Those used to frighten us quite a bit, but it gets easier with practice. One cool trick that helps to apply swift changes to the whole piece is to flatten it all into one layer and work from there. This way we can color-correct, paint over, transform, flip and re-arrange major chunks of the image, without nervously jumping from one layer to another. It is a "destructive" workflow, for sure, but an efficient one, as long as you have a clear goal in mind.