[ARCHIVE] cushy camper (2019)

    Here’s another piece from my archives! I included both the full-resolution of the image above, along with a gas/sweat alt, below. I’m getting through these quickly, so expect new work somewhat soon. This one i had a bunch of fun on, it reached a pretty big audience by my standards, and it‘s some of my favorite art i’ve done! I’m a sucker for huge butts (particularly sitting on other people), soft arms, and squishy folds. Really it was only a matter of time before this picture had happened.

    It did take me a while to really understand what a good pose of this sort required, as i was still very inexperienced in larger sizes. It was hard figuring out how much arm or paw could be shown from this angle without breaking the anatomy completely. With the help of my close friend Otto and their redlining of my sketches, i was able to suss out some of the issues regarding posing in the sketch stage. Once that was figured out, things like fat squishing and pinching became easy. I pushed it a lot more than i had before and by the end i was very confident in my ability to manipulate softer forms. A huge breakthrough for me, especially doing this kind of art! 

    The squirrel girl trapped under my fursona's rear was my first time drawing characters interacting with each other directly. It's not that wild considering she's almost completely buried, but it got me comfortable with the possibility of taking more risks like that in the future. She's nobody in particular, i just think forest critter ladies in plaid are hot.

    The environment wound up being a happy accident caused by me wanting to fix how empty the image originally looked. I didn't really have any environment art skills but i needed something. I decided to put my scribbling skills to work and painted as many flowers and cutesy doodles in the foreground and background until i wound up with something that looked like it had depth. I think i succeeded in creating a sense of space and i hope to revisit a similar style in the future, but the technique definitely needs improvement. I still love it to bits though for what it is.

    As for the slob alt, it was only my second time really putting effort into a slob/gas version of my art. I didn't do much of that stuff back then and i'm still working to do it more. This was my first time tying out sweat drips and stains. I found watercolor brushes work great for that effect. The way that you get edges to the color blocking when you blend really helps seal the effect of something damp and saturated. I recommend you check out FRENDEN's brush 'Watercolor (Gouache Like)' for CSP if you use the program. It's a solid brush with a nice level of blending without being too 'smeary'. A few scratches and marks into the stains with an eraser helped create an effect of the threads of fabric being different levels of wet/dry while also forming sweat shapes. I use that idea a lot in both my slob and cel-shading techniques. My rendering involves as much painting as it does doodling honestly.

    I also tried a bit more of a foggy effect with the farts. It had been suggested to me that what makes farts look good in larger quantities is a bit of translucency. I suppose this way you can layer clouds of gas and the more opaque layers look denser/closer? I'm still figuring it out but I think this was when i first felt like i knew what i was doing with gas. Whoever suggested that to me (I think Otto?) knew what they were talking about. You can really see a pattern in my obsession with swirls here.

    That's all for now! I'll be posting another archive illustration with plenty of slob alts soon. I'm even tempted to add one onto an old picture that is just built for that sort of thing. Sorry for all the commentary. I promise i'll cool down on how much commentary i do when i'm not reminiscing over old work. That should be pretty soon.