Another new character, though I've yet to settle on her name as of yet! When I was streaming recently some folks suggested I draw a pretty bird--and I consider secretary birds to be among the prettiest and most visually interesting. I just had to draw one myself!
This is a personal piece for myself and for it I endeavored to push more boundaries and try new techniques as ever; it ended up being a lengthier undertaking than I would have expected, but I'm pretty well thrilled with the results! I'm particularly happy with how her face and beak turned out--the blending effect with the hues around her face was accomplished with paints and some ginger blur & smudge applications while cropping. I'm very pleased with the outcome!
For a different departure, until now my workflow had generally been rough sketch -> refined sketch -> inking -> coloring -> lighting & finishing. While I had initially done the rough and refined sketch for this about two weeks ago, I walked away from it and when I returned, I wasn't happy at all with how she looked (particularly her feathers, since they really just looked like my fur fluff.) So I scrapped the refine and took a stab at inking line work directly from the rough instead. Since this went fairly well, I'll be trying this with future pieces and suspect it will lend to cutting down on the time each piece takes me a good deal.
As for the still nameless character herself: she is tall (of course!) and has an interest in kickboxing (naturally,) she struggles to avoid succumbing to a fate of living up to her namesake and being a secretary, though both her sisters are and her mother and grandmother were. Her family pressures her to become a secretary for a dragon, since it is a really really good career. She enjoys playing tennis a lot and likes to play paintball. Hooray!
Here is a time-lapse animated gif of most of the creation of this piece for anyone interested: http://i.imgur.com/gI7POJW.gifv
