Opulent Splendor

Ive been wanting to do another Keqing pic because I wasnt too happy with the first one, specifically her face/expression. I feel like I made her too young probably due to the round face and big eyes and I also wanted her to look more elegant in general. Plus a few months ago we got her new outfit which I really like, so that became an extra reason to do it.

Unlike with most of my genshin art, this time I kept the dress design mostly untouched, with some very minor changes just to remove some unnecessary clutter (in my opinion anyway). It was mostly removing some patterns from her tights and the "scarf" hanging from her arms, plus the ribbon on her necklace wasnt working so I also changed that, and lastly I made the shoes open toe because this kind of design is my favorite and I think it really fits the rest of the look.

The line art for this one took a really long time, I think longer than the coloring even, due to me wanting to get all the details on the dress just right and having everything fit into the way I do proportions (because the in game models have a more anime look where the characters are shorter and have bigger heads) while looking natural. 

Plus I rarely do full body pics of characters standing up like this, and the reason is that to have the whole character fit into the pic you need to zoom out more, so you lose the usual sense of intimacy I have on most of my stuff when they are either sitting or lying down which allows for a horizontal composition. That said since it had to be so vertical I decided to just go with the ratio of my phone screen which is 1080x2400, and it does look great there.

Anyway as I said in the previous post I think the highlight here is definitely the colors. Keqing already has great colors by default, and the black and blue combo of the dress makes her even better. Then I thought Id just go for lots of purple with the background as well and get that sort of ethereal look. 

Now that Ive had it done for a while and I have a more unbiased view, Im not completely happy with it but at the same time I did manage to do what I wanted and this is much closer to how I imagine her. The thing Im struggling with the most is still balancing characters and backgrounds so I guess thats the main thing I need to work on. Not sure whats coming next yet though, got a few things in the works but no idea which one Ill finish first.