Afterglow

Mentioned a few weeks ago that I wanted to do another Y'shtola pic before Dawntrail, so here it is. It was very timely because Id been in a slump for the last few weeks and this helped me finally get out of it, being something safe and simple that I knew Id enjoy.

I wanted to do something sensual and revealing but wholesome at the same time, basically the kind of pic where you fall in love with the character (for those who havent already, lol). Everything plays into it with body language and expression being the most important factor as always. I wanted her to have a gentle, inviting smile like someone you know youd be super comfortable spending some intimate time with.

Something I was a bit undecided about was whether to have her look in the direction of the viewer or not. I tried both and after going back and forth I definitely liked this more, maybe because of the way her eyes look where you can tell she is looking in your general direction but not exactly at you, which I thought was so fitting considering her "condition".

The thing I put the biggest focus on this one was probably her skin, and its why I went with a bright background in the first place. This is one of my favorite skin tones along with ghostly pale skin (big contrast, I know lol) and I love how much it stands out here. I also tried to make it as soft as I could through the shading, while keeping all the usual detail. I think skin is definitely one of the areas Ive improved the most lately, and this pic is a good showcase for that.

For the "finish" I wanted to give it a bit of that dreamy glow, which again adds to the softness of it all. Its something Id love to do more of but its very tricky to do without losing detail, and you often end up with the pic looking too blurry which Im not a fan of. I think this one has a nice balance when it comes to that.

I also spent quite a bit of time at the end tweaking the colors, trying to decide how warm I wanted them to be (especially regarding the skin), and also added some subtle splashes of red here and there. Probably one of those things people wont even notice until reading this, but it makes a huge difference to me (at least on my monitor lol).

In the end, as I said at the start, its a simple portrait but its exactly what I needed and Im very happy with how it turned out. Now Im hoping to get a bunch more stuff done in the coming weeks before Dawntrail arrives (along with a few more things I wanna play).