GUESS WHAT. GUYS, GUESS WHAT. I am dissapointed in myself. Every single month of 2019 I drew Ruindir at least once. Every single month of 2020, except October, I drew Ruindir at least once.
NOW GUESS WHAT I HAVEN'T MANAGED TO DO IN EITHER FEBURARY OR MARCH.

But in my defense, I drew him twice in January and started this drawing in March, soo... yeah... still dissapointed in myself though.

So, after that realisation of mine, I decided to just make this drawing super detailed and super epic :D

>>yeets sketch in chapter<<

I was going for a rather simple pose, accompanied with some nice, glowy, fire stuffs ^-^

Why so simple when I said above that I wanted to be detailed and epic? BECAUSE CLOTHING BABY. I randomly decided to just waste 5 hours on drawing the sketch of his clothes, because I can... well, actually because I wanted to use this drawing in order to create a geshin impact version of him, and since all the people there have super fancy clothing, and Ruindir is the guy with even more fancy clothing, I had to go over the top in that aspect.... yeah... but it was fun!

I am indeed exceptionally happy with how I lined his face this time around. I don't know what it is, but I just really nailed it this time around ^-^

I did indeed try my very best to throw as many beeds, patterns, and so on in here, whilst also keeping some rather simple elements, like the trousers, to balance the outfit out. This also was the first time I attempted to design the clothing directly on the character... so no sketches below, no seperate brainstorms on one of my clothing bases, etc. Usually a bad idea in my case, but with this piece probably the best thing that could happen.

Essentially really not wanting to draw the lines for the arms and hands, I went ahead and lined the piece... which was a painstaking task, but also was A LOT of fun, because I could... include more details in the details. As in, I wasn't adding anything more on top, but instead gave it all some three dimensional value, seams, etc.

Still not really fancying to finish the lines, I continued with the flat colours, having an incredible time adding patterns and gradients to everything, whilst also trying to make sure that none of the elements really melted into one another, whilst ALSO trying to keep everyhing as orange as possible... it was a bit of a challenge, but who doesn't like challenges that are colour and art related ^-^

>> floofs through flowy floof-hair <<

And after that I honestly didn't have much of a choice, other than to do them arms and hands (and the background ofc) so I went back to work on those, which also was very much fun... and I'm not gonna lie, I am indeed incredibly proud of those hands, especially since they are indeed mostly drawn from imagination since I COULDN'T FIND A SINGLE FUKKIN REFERENCE... and I am too stupid to take pictures of my own hands that aren't just motioion blurred into incoherence -_-"

Either way, I then threw the rest of the lines in there and added the remaining flats.. really not all that mutch to say here or to explain...

Enjoy this view, since after this WIP everything more or less goes downhill in the shading >w<

Okay, so I added the background and started to shade everything in. Eyes went well, hair turned out way more contrasted than I wanted but still hella, freakin awesome, metal went well... I literally thought this was gonna be the best drawing of Ruindir so far... heck, this should have become the best drawing of the year!

Goal was, to put about as much effort into the shading here, as I did with that redraw of Feredir. And that was stupid of me, since this is a way larger drawing and the viewer would loose himself in the detail, and I also would take ages to do so, but hey. I dreamt big xD

Shading went overall pretty well, until I had issues with the light source and the folds in the clothing... but that wasn't the main issue. My main problem was literally the skin, BECAUSE I ALWAYS FUCK UP SHADING RUINDIRS SKIN. ARGH. Mah boy never looks like himself as soon as i add shadows and that really pisses me off at times. Like.. hands and arms aren't the issue here... I am actually happy with the hand shading, even though I could have pushed he subsurface scattering. It's the face.

Now the question is.... where did I go wrong?
Wait.... before I talk about mistakes you probably should see the finished picture..... here ya go:

Okay, so my main issue here probably was, that I didn't consider the planes of the face properly, when starting to shade and considering the light source, and I obviously wasn't ready for something like that yet >w<

Through that, I made the highlights rather bright, which isn't even a bad thing, but in addition to that, I made the shadows to dark, pulling more ephasis on elements that usually aren't as prominent in his facial structure. The nose is too sharp, as isthe cheek, and the eyelids are too prominent. I ended up pushing elements too far back, which estranged his appearance as a character.

And whilst I do think I managed to catch his appearance in the linework better in this picture, if we get out this image I made in january, we can see a bit better the relations and depths of his face, even though I used minimal shading.
So when going back and probably having some fun with cell-shading on my second run, I will definetely try to keep the shadows not as extreme.

Either way, I still think the drawing is hella cool, even though his face doesn't look just quite like him... and since I like it so much, I slapped the title of the book this scene probably will be from on top, and most likely use the reshaded version on the cover ^-^

Soooo... hope you liked the process and the drawing itself! I am rather interested in trying out more cell-shaded drawings, since that's just a lot faster that soft-shading, and allows me to produce more drawings in less time.
But what do you think about that? Would be cool if you could tell me what one looks better, if any look better at all, since I am terrible at making decisions in regards of changing major parts in my art.... >>looks back at the time I wanted to do lineless pieces, even though I very much wasn't ready for that, and shudders<<

>>pats you, gives you cookies, tea and a blanket<<

So I hope you hang around for some future chapters, have a great rest of the day/night and take care of yourselves.

(LinaewenFinduilas vote-through my artbooks process whilst i finished the chapter: Jade (WOOHOO YOU MADE IT!! NEARLY THERE MAN!) - "wip - february leftovers")