This originally started out as another fun pose/dress-up piece with Joey. Had it stayed that, I would've gone and posted this a week ago and all would be well.
This sketch took me all of like- 30 minutes. And then what I should have recognized as the voice of the devil went 'but wouldn't it be cool if Jou had REBD on his jacket? but we can't see his jacket. so how else can we put REBD in the piece?
The solution I came up with was 'well why not make it an emblem of sorts- something that represents Joey in his dueling career?'
cue many. many. drafts of how to get a recognizable REBD, most of which didn't work either as REBD or as an emblem. The design in the bottom left was ultimately what I used and even then she went through some CHANGES
[not pictured: her absolutely FUCKING with me over the course of several days and probably a solid hour spent on figuring out how to shade her neck alone. I love you REBD but oh my god you're a pain] also, she doesn't have three shoulder spikes. I made that the fuck up. but it pairs with her face spikes and is reminiscent of her wings and claws.
Eventually I started fiddling with what I actually wanted the image to be because it was slowly becoming evident that this was not. going to be Joey dressup hour. 'wouldn't a promo poster be cool?' (this too was the voice of the devil)
Similarly not depicted is several evenings of fucking with palettes and backgrounds and what-would-kaiba-approve-of (because I imagine he bought Duel Monsters after Pegasus's death)
I eventually settled on this design that would allow for visual cohesion across multiple posters (with the thought that this would be one of a set of posters depicting duelists who have won various tournaments hosted by KC) (<- I was lazy and didnt add WHICH tournaments even though I totally should have but that would require inventing tournaments so here we are.)
I did for fun mock up some palettes for other duelists
Left to right: Mai, Yugi, and Kaiba
The kerning and slope of the text was a nightmare and a half to make look nice (and you can see it looks a fair bit worse in the screenshot of the base design) as CSP has no feature to write vertical letters on a slope like this without some very clever manipulation of line spacing... or in my case putting each letter on a new layer and manually moving them into position. they're probably far from perfect, but graphic design is not my passion no matter what this project made me pretend.
In the end, despite all the time i put into creating a pretty, metallic REBD I ended up flattening her and sticking a red drop shadow behind her and adding a drop shadow to Jou as well.
also, Jou has a teeny earring shaped like a DM card.
(also, his jacket DOES have REBD on the back. and it's cropped. because I say so.
All in all I'm happy with how this turned out even if it goddamn tested me. Trying to design for a hypothetical promo poster was a really interesting constraint to play with.
Thanks for reading the artist rambles! have some cookies on your way out (: 🍪🍪🍪
i forgot to post about it here, but i officially rung my bell 2 days ago! 🔔 🎉 i’m still staying locally by the hospital i was at (2 and a half hours away from home 😣) while i visit the clinic 3 times a week… but i’m out of the hospital (thankfully!!!)
i still have a long while to go before i’m completely healthy, i have the immune system of a 6 month old baby rn!! but baby steps and i’m so proud of myself… my mom really was my anchor and idk what i would have done without her… but YAY!!!
