Here´s the making of Reika! It started with these two poses. Aoi liked the second one.
As i went on doing the lineart, her pose felt more and more unnatural to me, specially on the hips. I even tried it myself, and although i could pull it off, it was extremely forced and i could feel my spine crying lol
Re-sketched her lower portion, trying to keep the original feel. The twist is still quite strong, but not as ridiculous as before.
As i tweaked the pose, her sword arm started to blend too much into the torso, so i moved it outwards a little. I draw portions of lineart in different layers, so it´s much easier to move parts around if i need to.
Finished the lineart. Final Fantasy XIV designs have a massive amount of detail, it´s easy to get yourself lost.
Laying the flat colors is the most boring part, partly because i have quite some trouble picking colors. But once it´s over, all i need is shading and finishing touches.
Base shading! Pretty chill, just figure the light source more or less, and go from there.
Place more colors on the shadow layer, and more lights in general
And there you go ^^