Muscles and Mai Tais

Onyx knows how to enjoy herself when it comes to a day at the beach, keeping cool in the warm sunny weather with a drink in hand, and as  little clothing as possible! It seems you've caught her eye though,  perhaps she's looking for another way to enjoy herself? What better way  to spend a day at the beach than with a gigantic muscular woman and some  appropriately tropical drinks!

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Hello again Patrons!

First time I'm making one of these Finished Illustration posts under the new format, so the contents of this one (primarily the description) are going to be slightly different from how these will look in the future. As to HOW they'll look different, they will probably have more of a "copy paste" description from public gallery posts when the pieces are ones that are posted publicly, which means that a lot of the content within the description might not be "Patreon focused". That being said I'll still be adding context and details that patrons will hopefully find insightful and enjoyable!

So as I mentioned on the public posts, this is Onyx! My OC that acts as both a Sona as well as a "brand mascot" or whatever the artist's equivalent of that might be. They have a split role in the same way that my OC Brock/Brooke do, however in their context, their roles are split between Sona and Story Character. All that is to say that while these characters are ones I at least partially identify as (to varying degrees depending on the OC), I also realize that their primary purpose is to serve another role, in Brock and Brooke's case, as a character in the narrative I have for most of my other OCs, and in Onyx's case, to be a face for the identity that is "Onyx Pirate". For those wondering, I do have another OC whose sole role is to be a Sona and a representation of "Me", the artist, and that OC is Red, who I've sketched out a couple times! But I'm rambling, so let's get back to Onyx!

I stated in the Snapshot update earlier that this pic came out of a desire to have a finished pic for the week, and was spurred in part by a Twitter trend for "National Bikini Day". That was only part of the context, as I have had a desire to do pinups of a number of my characters in bikinis or different beachwear for the Summer, and as I had no idea that "National Bikini Day" was a thing, I decided at that point "what better time than now to start on the beach pics?" So that was the major driver behind this image! But as I was working on it I also wanted to practice the speed at which I get these drawings done. I was initially trying to get it done in a single day, but as I continued working on it, I was enjoying it too much to rush it out without giving it some proper love, also due in part that this was to be the first "proper" pic of Onyx and a bit of an introductory piece.

So once I realized that I wasn't going to be happy with trying to use this piece as a "single day exercise", I decided instead to practice different surface properties, particularly body oil! You can see in the post that there is a version that has a bit more shine to the forms, and while I'm not entirely happy with the end results (as I was still operating under a desire to get it done quickly), I don't think it came out that badly either. It's definitely something I'll want to practice more in the future though. There are also two versions of the picture without the body oil, with slightly tweaked lighting. That's simply because after looking at the picture a day or two after it was done, I wasn't really happy with just how subtle the lighting was in the initial release. Again, I don't think it's bad, but the softer lighting doesn't really make it feel like a sunny beach, which stereotypically has pretty bright harsh light and shadow. So the second pic in the gallery is a post-correction attempt to get some of that feeling back, but realistically the best way to go about getting the vibe I want would be to re-do the lighting altogether. Maybe something I'll do if I have time, but I doubt I will.

Especially since I already want to do an alternate version of this pic with Onyx's junk added in. If you saw the initial sketch, you'll remember that there was a pretty prominent bulge that's missing in the final piece. The reason for that is I'm likely going to use this piece for commission quality examples in future price sheets, and I want to keep those SFW (or at least, not actively showing huge genitals and naked bodies), so that's why it's just femme Onyx for now! Once I get around to finishing the alternate version, I'll add those pics to this post and update it for you all!

Man that got long-winded. Maybe future posts of these nature will be a bit more concise, haha. Enjoy!