Etna Disgaea

like fifteen hours in so figured I'd post where I am for posterity and all that. Finished the design of etna's costume for the most part, still a few loose ends. However, I don't think there is any more major changes coming.

So here is a few flash backs to where I came from:

listening to:
Megaman X - Spark Mandrill Acapella
Street Fighter 2 - Ryu's Theme Acapella
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness - The Invasion From Within

mostly on repeat, because i'm cool like that.

I didn't know what to do and i've not painted in a while. So I just jumped in and tried not to think about it too much. I wanted to stay with a "Etna like costume" whatever that means. So I was trying to do a lot of things that alluded or straight up referred to stuff from her original designs. Also I wanted to give her big wings.

Just trying to figure out where this costume is going, and what is going on with the legs. I like the heels with the prinny design. But the costume does not feel unified so I keep fiddling.

Flip and change the belt and the tail. added a prinny satchel, keep fiddling!

Fiddling with the shoe design. I wanted it to be prinny based. I was liking the idea of a platform or heel/boot. However, I did not want the boots to be blue so I was fiddling with a color scheme.

Still fiddling, I did not want the boots to be blue so I went for an evil robo prinny and called it good.

Fiddled with the hair and the costume. Getting more saturation into the painting. Paying a little more attention to the back side (not much). Add in some eyes! Also I was playing with a 'art signature' and was kinda happy with the one I scribbled down at 4am.

It's a given at this point that I am changing proportion like every progressive save. Rendering. Getting more saturation and refined rendering after I decide I don't totally hate my design. Also take away yhe leg netting as I feel the legs are sort of wonky.

Starting to go cheaty face and using tools instead of hand painting everything. A lot of the pen tool, warp, and some liquefy. I think it was at this stage I actually exploded the image from one master layer to indavidual layers for every item. body, spear, shirt, skirt, ect. I did a full nude body paint to figure out what I was doing. and ended up making a tone of proportion changes everything was too long.
I'm feeling the lack of a refined drawing. I've painted, repainted and re-repainted limbs and items over and over again due to poor proportion, perspective, bad shape, and the whim of not liking the thing after rendering it.

Gave the hair some love, added a spear, and touched the neckless/shirt. Rendering, rendering.

Here is where I currently reside. Still fixing proportion/perspective stuff. Trying to get shape language, rending style somewhere in the realm of Disgaea arts. Other than that rending out the costume and figure out how stuff fits together and falls on the model. There are still some problem areas that I should get around to fixing sooner rather than later. Like the uncomfortable position of the back leg and the semi messed up shoulders/armpits. I will be doing a rough breakdown sheet of how everything works and what not. Then I get to start on the back.

I probably have more in progress saves somewhere. But this is what I got for now! Thanks for reading.

I get to the face eventually...