Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my drawings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
If you missed the last couple of posts, I started a new series where I use this template to draw different characters based on suggestions from my viewers on Twitch!
I found this template on Facebook one day, and had the idea to draw different characters for a potential NFT series in the future, but then the whole NFT thing kinda tanked. But I thought it was still a cool drawing exercise to do and I wanted to reward my loyal viewers. So instead of drawing characters I already know I thought asking chat would be cool since it would expose me to different characters too!
Anyway, this request was made by one of my dear streamer friends who goes by evanixxx on Twitch! He's always been around ever since he found my channel through one of our mutual streamer friends on the platform and it's always a pleasure to chat and play with him so I was more than happy to do this request, which was Diluc from Genshin Impact! He looks like this:
Source: Fandom
Since Genshin is our main game and Diluc is his favourite character or his husbando, if you will, it was kinda expected that he'd request Diluc. We're both Diluc mains in Genshin and it's a shame that he gets hated on a bit but for good reason if you know the gacha mechanics of the game.
At least this was a character I was familiar with, but I still asked Evan if he wanted a particular pose or expression. I kinda had something in mind though, since Diluc always has a deadpan face and is very serious all the time in-game, I thought the default template face would match him quite well.
Ultimately, I decided on something simple on-stream and sketched this out in a few minutes live:
It definitely looked pretty simple and at least this way I wouldn't have to worry too much about his outfit since that's my main gripe with all these Genshin characters (I drew Itto and Kokomi previously as requested). They're really detailed and I appreciate it aesthetically in-game, but having to draw it myself is a different story. 😞
Anyway, off-stream I cleaned up the sketch and also decided to add in his bird friend since Diluc has a pet bird of sorts that appears in one of his idle animations. He's pretty sweet with the bird and I wanted to draw his bird with a derpy face initially, but it didn't really work as well so I just gave it a more neutral expression.
I cleaned up the sketch and ended up with this!
Then it was time to outline! I tried to be as accurate with his outfit as possible but it was kinda tough to envision with his arms crossed. One of the references helped though.
After that I realised his bird didn't look that accurate to its look in-game and resembled more of a parrot, so I decided to change it and I think this looks a lot better! I wanted to give him the same expression as Diluc himself but he just ended up looking sad, but I thought it was quite cute so I left it at that.
Then it was time for my favourite stage - colouring! This one was fairly simple since Diluc really only has a few colours. Especially since I wasn't going all out with his outfit. I added some shadows and highlights and we get this pretty clean looking illustration:
We were mostly done, but I wanted to give him a unique background too of course. He doesn't really have an emblem of sorts but my first thought was definitely to include his phoenix! He uses the fire element in-game, and his ultimate skill is to summon a phoenix that will push enemies back and do fire damage on them. It's probably the most iconic thing about him, so it made sense to include it!
Source: highgroundgaming
I wanted to do a background similar to the splash art in-game, but maybe a simpler version? But first was figuring out how to draw a phoenix. So I sketched a rough outline:
Then I tried a few different brushes trying to see which would look the best. I initially used the lightbrush but found that it looked too pastel-like and faint, not like the vibrant fire I was going for.
I ultimately just decided to use my regular paintbrush and airbrush the highlights and shadows to give it that fire colour. I also added in a sloppy fire tornado of sorts with the lightbrush which I realise looks quite pathetic but I didn't want it to distract from Diluc himself. I couldn't make it too big, nor too light since I wanted it to still be seen. It was a tough line to walk, but I thought the phoenix came out pretty well!
I thought the fire tornado wouldn't look that bad since Diluc was going to be blocking most of it. But I think I drew it with him in front anyway. I wanted there to be something more other than just the phoenix and I tried my best. Anyway, here's the full piece!
I still think the tornado looks a little meh, but I'm not actually sure how I would change it now. Maybe tracing an actual tornado with my lightbrush? Either way, I thought it looked pretty okay, and Evan loved it so I was glad to keep it at that.
Here's the 30 sec timelapse:
If you're interested, I do draw on stream sometimes and you can even claim free artwork if you get enough channel points! Come hang out with us on my Twitch channel!!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
thanks so much for curating @brumest! ^-^