Riza

As I mentioned last week Ive been trying to get some new character commissions done and this is one of those.

Its another type 2 au ra, like Lychee, and once again I think she turned out gorgeous. There is something about them especially with the face, that just really fits my style so I always end up being a bit jealous when my own au ra doesnt look as good.

For this one I was asked to do something explicit, with very confident body language and an arms up pose of some kind. At first I wasnt sure about it because it sounded like the kind of thing that could easily become trashy/vulgar with the wrong approach, but after trying a lot of things, the body language actually turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the pic. I think her looking away from the viewer helps a lot with that but in general, I think it looks really elegant and the confidence just adds to it.

Another thing is you probably noticed the (unusual) lack of pubic hair with this one and its of course by request. Sadly not everyone likes it and it being a commission, its not up to me, though it doesnt bother me that much anyway and as I always say I like doing all kinds of body types so its fine really, even if I will always prefer the character to have some hair down there.

One "funny" problem I ran into was the fact her horns and arms kept colliding because the fin horns are much bigger than the ones I usually do with my character for example, and I just couldnt figure out how to do that in a physically accurate way, like they would just look superimposed or something which made no sense and it really bothered me. And I also didnt want the arms to completely hide the horns because theyre one of my favorite parts about this kind of au ra. But after a while I finally figured it out how to have them be very visible while still making sense.

Its one of those things you dont really think about until you try to draw them, like for example: how do au ra sleep? Arent their horns just gonna poke through the pillow? It sounds uncomfortable no matter which position they are in.

Anyway existential questions aside, she also has pretty unique colors especially the greyish skin tone, which made me wanna go with something almost monochromatic, but then to avoid it looking too boring, I tried adding bits of purple here and there (especially with lips, nails and the plants) and it worked wonders. Its really what brings the whole thing together.

I also worked pretty hard on the shading for this one and I really like how much volume it has or how "3D" it looks, so its something Im gonna try to apply to future drawings as well (I think its even more noticeable with the next one). This might be the breakthrough Ive been searching for for ages, but I need to see if it works with every pic and if I can do it consistently first.

So yeah, very happy with this one and so was the person who commissioned it which means you will be seeing more of her at some point.