Sakura's Scene WIP - The Importance of Reference

I've had some stuff come up this week and wasn't able to finish the CG in time for today's post, so this WIP is public as an apology.

Basically, my apartment is getting it's bi-annual inspection this weekend. Anytime between now and Sunday, management could just walk into my apartment. I'd rather not have them catch me working on adult artwork. You never know how someone is going to react to that kind of thing. And unfortunately I wasn't able to finish it up during the week because I was busy cleaning for the inspection, on top of everything else I normally do. So I'll be finishing this up as soon as the inspection is over and I'm able to get back to work.

So here's what's done so far.

The lines and flat color is here, all that's left is the rendering. So it's about 2/3 of the way done. Just a few more hours of work left.

I'm going to talk a bit about why I chose this pose, and then some process stuff now. If you're just here for the artwork, I hope you like it and look forward to the finished version!

Some Stuff About the Scene - 

For everyone else, his marks the first time we get a glimpse of the MC's head. Part of it anyway. I'll always want it obscured, at least the face. It makes it easier to self insert. Usually I go for POV scenes or having his head slightly off-screen, but I wanted to make sure there was some variety. This scene was a great chance to do that. If you read Sakura's introduction, you'll know who she was inspired by. I thought it would be fun to continue that inspiration with her scene, by doing a scene similar to my favorite from the original inspiration's game. That being a cowgirl scene on a couch. 

Process - The Importance of References - 

I wanted to talk about references and how to use them for this WIP post. This may surprise some people, but artists almost always use references. The only real time a good artist doesn't use a reference, is when they're drawing something they already know how to do because they've done it so many times they've developed a muscle memory for it. That's why you see a lot of professional work in the same or very similar poses. Even then, they had to use references a lot to learn how to draw it. It's a pretty common misconception that good artists don't use references, or even shouldn't use references. But that's just not true, and there's nothing wrong with using reference. It speeds up the process, helps to ensure accuracy, and helps an artist develop. 

A lot of what I've done for this project is new for me, so I've been using a lot of references. And I've been kind of figuring out what the best references are. I developed this art style for this game, and it's a bit outside of my normal style. Normally I do more realistic stuff. So I've been having to learn a good process as I go. And I've found one that seems to be working pretty well.

Something that may surprise people, is that I've been using 3D animations for reference, rather than real life. I've found it works better for the more exaggerated proportions that come along with an anime style. Making it so I can follow the reference a little more closely, which speeds things up a bit. Having to translate from a real reference to the exaggerated proportions of anime can be a lot more work. Since there aren't things like small necks, big heads or eyes, the bigger boobs/butts, and curvier bodies.

But all of that exists in 3D work. This is the first time I've used specifically an OW character for a reference, and it's been the smoothest translation so far. I still had to adjust some of the basic shapes, like the head and face proportions and the butt a bit, but the base proportions are much closer to the art style than any other reference I've used so far. So I'll definitely be doing that again. At least for the skinnier, more normally built, characters. For the thicker girls, like Ayako and Kaori, I'll still need to use something else.

Of course, there were still other challenges. It'll probably be easier to show rather than try and talk about it. Here's the reference I used for this scene.

As you can see, they're on a couch, but the cushions are covering up parts of the characters. So I had to add those details in myself. There were also some adjustments I needed to make to the characters. Like the ponytail here is way higher than Sakura's, so I had to bring it down. There's a lot of accessories I had to remove, of course Sakura isn't wearing a bodysuit so I had to work around that. And then the MC isn't meant to be quite this buff, so I had to adjust the muscle size a bit. A lot of that will come in the rendering as well. The framing in this screenshot is also a little odd. It's great for a fully realized scene that's in motion, but without a background and as a still, a huge chunk of the background just turns into empty space. It's especially bad without the big ponytail going up. So I had to change the framing by zooming in a bit and adjusting the overall position of the characters.

In addition to all of that, something that goes into every scene when using a reference, is having to figure out which lines to use. Real life, and even most 3D work, doesn't have linework. Instead, when working in a simplified style with linework, it's up to the artist to figure out what needs lines and what can be defined by shading. Which can be a lot more difficult than it sounds. Too many lines and everything starts to look weird. Body parts will start to look too short or too long, or will look like the wrong angle, or can look like they're deformed or connected in an unnatural way. Even if everything else is the exact right size and shape. Learning that kind of thing is just practice and experimentation. For example, in this scene, there's a separation between her left buttcheek and her leg, with a line between them to help define the vagina being spread. If I were to make it one big line connecting the thigh and the butt, it would look like the leg was weirdly floating in front of the character, rather than attached.

Another big thing I'll also need to change is the lighting. In really high quality 3D work like this, there's always a lot of lights coming from different directions to add more depth and make the scene more interesting. Which doesn't really work for a basic anime style. If it was a bit more detailed with more soft shading and a full background, I could follow the lighting in this scene, but in the WW style, it would just lead to a lot of big blocks of shadow and look weird. So instead, the lighting will likely be coming from the front top left. That way there's a good shine on Sakura's leg and butt. Which is the main focus of a scene like this. Without adding too many harsh shadows anywhere else. On top of all of that, since there's no backgrounds for scenes in WW, instead with the scenes being on top of game itself, lighting like this wouldn't make any sense. Since a lot of the lighting is coming from the window, but without a window in the scene to show where the light is coming from, it would look weird and wrong. Especially since even in the game, you're in the middle of a house. There aren't any visible windows. So your brain would think it looks weird with multiple lights or if there was a background, it would be confusing. Since the background wouldn't match what's actually in the game scenery. 

Anyway, that's how I translate a reference into a scene. I hope that was helpful. With any luck, my apartment management will be here soon, and I'll get this finished up before the end of the weekend. Either way, I'll post it as soon as it's done, and I'll still be posting a new piece of artwork next week.