Practice Makes Perfect

Lulu WIP

I started working on a sketch for the The Warriors of Final Fantasy tribute over at Game Art HQ (the Deviant Art group page can be found here).  I opted first to take on Kuja, then Beatrix, and Freya before finally landing on Final Fantasy X's Lulu.   

The pic to the right is of course not finished, but it's what the final version is more or less going to be.  I encountered quite a bit of anatomical difficulty with constructing this image.  But I learned some things while studying how I could improve.

I think part of the key to creating good art is understanding how the muscles lock in together.  If you can keep the layout of the underlying musculature in mind, it can keep you on the right track when building your pose.

Whenever I compose any picture, I usually will draw the body completely naked first before adding any clothes.  So sometimes that means I spend a good chunk of time defining a form that is soon to be overwritten and erased.  Maybe there are faster ways, but I need to understand where the underlying form is before I can clothe it.  Of course, sometimes it's simpler to just leave it unclothed...