AFK Journey - Salazer

Farlight Games and Lillith Games just launched their new title AFK Journey!

Salazer is such a snack Big shout-out to their incredible artists who made all of the character designs so legible and aesthetically pleasing! You already know who is my favorite though, in and out of the armor 👀🔥

For more content and information about the game check their Twitter and Instagram 🙌To celebrate the launch they are giving some in-game currency (327 diamonds and 16,666 gold coins) when you use a gift code: AFKJourneyArt ✨

And here's the full process of creating this piece = v = /

This is the screen capture from one of the videos that got sent as a reference for this drawing~ Among many different characters that were presented to choose from, Salazer captured my interest instantly. He had a perfect energy of a spoiled princeling who surely would have a bit of a tsundere vibe when pressed against the wall XD

At first I started with an idea of a fully digital piece. I had a really cute idea for a pose in mind < v < Later on when contacting the creators they expressed it would be cool to see him in a more of a mix between traditional and digital and to see Salazer in a bit of a sexy take 😏 So this piece was scratched, even though I love it to this day.

I had to figure out some poses and compositions, so I started as always with thumb-nailing. Once I was satisfied with the poses I filled the rest of the page with the unrelated doodles~

At first I used a pose that looked great on a thumbnail but ended up kinda disappointing at the end. Maybe it was due to the nuance of how the perspective got executed poorly compared to the thumbail, the overall heaviness of the lines in the original design compared to the final one or just simply too many jumbled shapes that made the drawing look a bit less legible than I wanted? Overall I scrapped it and continued on with a different idea.

And here comes the pose that made me so excited at the beginning but ended up being my archnemesis. I had at least 3 takes on it but only 2 that I didn't rip to shreds, after I thought it would be a nice thing to show you that as artists we all fight the same demons 😩

All of my attempts felt so stiff that in the end I couldn't continue. I struggled for at least two days to come up with something satisfying but ended up calling it a day and giving myself some time to breathe and gather energy for the next take...

...which ended up being the one! Finally I managed to capture the true fucking opulence of Salazer! His face, smugness and the oh so yummy body finally sat right with me 😭🙌✨ It ended to be a final piece that I ended up coloring digitally ✨