Preorders for the Invincible Camus/archetype fanzine ( @invinciblezine ) are done (at least for now) and we’ve been given the okay to share our pieces! I contributed a sticker and an artwork for my husbando Camus!! I drew and painted the full piece first and then used the techniques I developed on that to paint the sticker. :D
This was truly a work of love, and of testing my personal art limits. My abbreviated workflow and thought process below the cut (if anyone’s curious):
Full piece:
I knew instantly that I wanted to draw Camus with an angel motif because “rumor has it that [he comes back from near-death so much that he] is watched over by a guardian angel” (blame my days in FERP, RPing with @gradiivus). Precisely how I wanted to display that idea changed a lot in the first days of this project--for instance, there was originally going to be an actual angel figure where the cape-wings are now (and that angel was going to be Nyna because Shadow Dragon was my first game, but rules were no shipping or implications of); and the pose was originally going to be front-view with very little thought to background design, let alone using background as composition element. Then I experimented with the pose, figures, and composition (because something just wasn’t sitting right with the first versions), and voila!
At first, I was torn between Camus’s FEH (favorite and the easiest to reference), FE:SD (nostalgia), and BSFE sprite (unique) designs. Not only did we have to choose different designs for multi-game characters, I also knew the white cape of his BSFE sprite would lend itself best to the wings effect I wanted. My only real reference was a tiny sprite, so I additionally based my design off Camus’s old fullbody BSFE art and some elegant (Baroque? just FEH-like?) designs pulled from memory. I had so much fun making beautiful bishie hair, beautiful clothing designs, and huge, elegant wings, despite the extra time it took to digi-line them. (Even though I‘m much better with my Wacom (Intuos) now, I still always start my drawings in pencil because sometimes I’m too AFK and poses are “easier” to fix on paper in my head.) Time flies when you’re having fun, right? But the real joy here was painting everything and pushing the limits of my painting skills. I learned several new techniques here, played with so many different brushes, and also got a reminder of how I need to use higher-contrast values orz. This and my FE Compendium piece are some of the only digital pieces I’ve ever done where I actually gave a damn about how the background looked (mainly due to lack of practice--I tend to do “studio” pieces with zero background more often), and I think it really paid off! The back- and foreground elements together really make this piece pop--I can’t believe I initially thought to go without them!
Altogether, this piece only took about... a week to finish? Definitely under 10 days. This is the fastest full piece I’ve ever finished, and I’m still so happy with it, it’s currently my phone wallpaper. If anyone ever starts a fanzine that involves Camus or Nyna, please hit me up, because (time pending) I am definitely in~
Sticker:
I knew instantly (again) that I wanted to make it chibi-style, and having come somewhat recently off the first Camus Revival GHB and having my initial sticker plans blown by posting my entire Camus bust ahead of schedule, I thought, “Why not make it Heroes-style”? Camus canonically wields swords and lances in Shadow Dragon and New Mystery and he already wields a the lance in Heroes, so I knew I had to go with the other weapon. Never mind that swords are the most overused weapon class in FE. Camus nearly never smiles in his (canon) depictions, but I figured a >:O face would be much cuter. And of course, since my full piece used my BSFE design, I decided to recycle the design onto the chibi. This piece only took me a day or two to finish, and it turned out super cute! Way better than the bust I was originally going to go with, even if this is a pain to cut precisely XD
Exactly a week ago, I was accepted to contribute to the Invincible fanzine ( @invinciblezine ), a fanart project dedicated to Camus and all his expies from Fire Emblem that's run by @dragontamer75 and @tatizekes! This has to be one of the faster digital arts I've done, and it's also my new favorite artwork. Can't wait until the book comes out! Expect it around June (2018)!
