Taking advice that I got from Autumn's portraits. I made some additional fixes as well as taking an impressionist approach to the background to increase focus on the focal point (the character) and improve depth. The character was sketched digitally, colored and rendered by hand using the brush tool. hair texture and hat fluff textures were also drawn and rendered by hand. The Background trees and snow were digitally painted using a soft brush to retain a blurred look as if it was being seen from a glance. I'll be doing this more frequent from now on when it comes to these types of CGs. The Ice shards were painted and rendered using the brush tool as well. With the two closest to the viewer being painted with a soft brush for a hand made blurred look. I wasn't able to really improve the values as much with the background due to the nature of the lighting. The main light source is her hand with the secondary source being the light bouncing off of the snow and ice shards. So the far background wouldn't be visible past a certain distance at night in the middle of the woods. It reads fine but it could have been better. And is more due to my choice in backgrounds. For those curious, I use the Grey Scale method of values checking. I don't really like blurring my eyes unnecessarily.
Total Layers used: 69 (the background being painted across only 3 for the trees and sky and shared layers for rendering cut the count down a lot). I'll be averaging at around 20 to 50 layers from this point on as I get more comfortable with painting over layers the traditional way.
As for the character, here's her bio:
Rin Miyuki a.k.a "Winter" Age: 26 Gender: Female Job Class: Wise Caster Bio: A skilled Wise Caster from the mountain region of Lucidia Island whom Vivian hired to serve as the guild's "Winter" member. Eventually becoming good friends with her and the other members. Having a natural resistance to extreme low temperatures, Rin often loves to tease the other members whenever they complain about the cold winter weather and snow that usually results from her spells. From verbal to light clothing in the winter time and while casting said spells. Rin specializes in ice and wind spells. Combining the two to simulate extreme cold weather such as hail and blizzards in general. Living up to her nick name "Winter Goddess". While she has great offensive power, she tends to focus on defensive counters to slow or stop her opponents cold in their tracks.
Personality Tropes: At her best she has a gentle and charming personality. At her worst she's insensitive to others when it comes to the cold, and personal space, coming off more as a Aphrodite. Usually she's fairly upbeat and entertaining.
