Lakeland

I was looking forward to posting this one because its a break from all the indoors/bedroom scenes, plus I think Kei is one of the favorites around here so I think many people will enjoy it.

I was given freedom with pretty much everything here, with the only keys being that she would be topless and if possible in an area with a lot of purple. So then we immediately realized lakeland was the perfect place for this for keeping it lore friendly.

Originally I was actually going to draw her fully nude (and did), but then I starting wondering about adding a scarf similar to the one in "Stealth", and then while I was at it I tried adding the socks as well plus some fingerless gloves which are always good. I feel like it really brings out her ninja look, much more so than if she were fully naked, plus the black and purple stripes just look so good on her, they have a cuteness to them but somehow dont look out of place with her more serious look here.

Then for the hair I changed it again (yay for playing with hairstyles). I went through a few variations, starting with twintails, then a ponytail, neither of which looked like her... So I kept messing with it and as soon as I arrived at the messy bun I knew that was it, it just looks perfect on her.

As for background, it also took me a while to figure out the direction I wanted to take it in with the colors. At first the far background looked a lot warmer like a sunset kind of color, but I thought it stood out too much so I went for a more neutral color there, basically white. I really like how it gives the whole area this "mist" kind of look, which is again a perfect fit for the character. Then I also added those butterflies which are just as important as the rubber ducky was in the last one, because that aqua blue adds so much to the overall composition (and they help drag your eyes towards that area of the pic).

So yeah spent a long time on this one but it was totally worth it and its always lots of fun to draw her.

Posts will be slowing down again in the next few weeks since I havent had any motivation/inspiration lately and Im running out of things to post, but hopefully Ill get over it quickly. Im working on a pic of my au ra right now which is what I always do when I want to get out of a bad phase and its been almost 2 months since the last one, so its a good time for a new one anyway.