F'elda

Today we have a miqo'te commission, and one of my favorites of 2024 so far.

For this one I wanted to do something with leg focus and also wallpaper/16:9 sized, so this kind of pin up pose with legs up was perfect. Then the main doubt I had was whether to go with bare legs or thighhighs. It was very close but in the end I went with this both because of the commissioners preference and also the fact it allows the legs to stand out from the background more. Plus while I slightly prefer barely legs in general, I do like shading legwear a lot, always trying to get that perfect texture with just the right amount of transparency, that looks so smooth you want to touch it, lol.

Then for the dress I went for something simple with that elegant casual feel and slightly sheer as usual (though only towards the bottom since I didnt want to have any actual nudity in this one). I love how the texture of the dress turned out, its actually one of my favorite things here. It looks translucent, almost magical.

To finish off the outfit we have the corsage she is wearing on her hair which is a big part of the character and goes well with the outfit overall too (and why I decided to go for a white dress in the end, although that wasnt the case right away). Overall I feel like its a really classy look, the kind thats sensual and elegant all in one.

I have to say Im also a big fan of the lion tail which is heavily underused in miqo'tes. Big fluffy tails are also great but this is a nice change and adds a bit more personality to it, plus it just goes so well with her design/colors.

For the general scene/background I wanted to do something very cozy, with strong sepia tones, almost with a vintage feel you could say. Its just the vibe I got from the character and I felt like it would match her colors really well, which proved to be true. Once again, this pic is a bit of a shading showcase and you can see how much of a jump it is going from flat colors to just having the background shaded in the progress pics. It adds so much volume/depth which then contributes to the sense of space. Thats why Ive been focusing on it so much and trying hard to get better at it.

Of course the same applies to her too. Im really happy with the shading on her skin, especially around the cleavage area and collarbones. Collarbones are one of those strangely sensual body parts that never gets talked about, like shoulders, lol. Ive realized I love how smooth they look if I completely erase the sketch lines and do them through shading only, so Ill try to always do that going forward. Its hard to apply it to au ra though because of the scales, so I need to figure that out first. Will have to change the way I do the neck scales a bit to make it work I guess, but Ill just practice it on my au ra in the future anyway, she is always the best test subject, lol.

Think thats all I have to say about this one. Also this character having the Y'shtola hairstyle reminded me I wanted to draw her before Dawntrail. Just a simple portrait probably, so Ill try to get it done in the next few weeks.