EnHo Winter AU - Thankyou for Feb 2024

So sorry this was late but thank you all for waiting!
After bringing up this piece to an artist mutual they gave the great idea to turn it into the Winter Fantasy AU that Horikoshi did for one of the popularity polls sadly one that Enji didn't make it into the top 10 😢 Since it was a winter themed piece to say good bye to Winter.

I've also attached a video timelapse for making this! If curious a bit about my thoughts on my art processes you can continue reading below ⬇️
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Just some details about my art process, about 3ish years ago I saw a video of a Riot artist using 3D models to help with an artwork he was recording that was being done for Riot Games, I remember sitting there being like "that's so useful to use 3D models for poses!" I could never find one I like (Clip Studio Paint's models were horrible back then) but after a fellow Endhawks artist shared they used magicposer I begun using it to build references when I needed alongside using photos of real people in poses etc to reference.
This is why you'll see at the start of the video the references I used to get the rough idea of the pose, followed by me just fleshing it all out, making anatomy adjustments, clothing etc.
I know of artists who trace the 3d models exactly as they are and that is perfectly fine too (I've seen intermediate to advanced artists doing it) but I find the models aren't accurate to life, so I don't like tracing them 1 to 1, I just want the rough idea of the pose and then I can let my brain do the rest of the filling.
I used to feel really ashamed about using references, it seems that artist's nowadays will chastise you depending on how heavily you use them, but all the old art masters used them, disney used to film actors playing out their scenes for their artists to recreate in animation, using references does not make you less of an artist, so if you are an artist, please, allow yourself to use references, don't be like me and feel ashamed of it and not use them, your art will be far better if you reference.

Honestly after the struggle of the sketch comes my favourite part, the part that my brain goes somewhere else and I just make the ✨lineart✨
After my favourite part comes the next hard part, flat colours and then rendering, boy is picking colours hard, honestly I have to remind myself that at the end I get to use gradient maps to make things look more 'harmonious'  and to 'trust the process'😆 and also the nice cherry ontop a little bit of a ~noise~ texture and it's done 😊

I'm going to try and share more timelapse videos sharing what went into making an art piece or even a comic page, just a little extra something something every so often for you all 😊