One year of sadhoot!

Happy one-year-anniversary to mee! 🥳

YES! FINALLY!

I don't know why, but this is my absolute favorite artwork ever. Can't explain, because skill and subject wise, this is a very "boring" artwork. Still, I literally counted the days until I could finally redraw it and as you can see, a lot changed during the year!

I tried to stick to the original idea as much as possible – meaning the idea I had in mind back then. Either I didn’t see my mistakes at the time, or I simply did not have the skill to implement the things I imagined. Now, a year older and wiser, I tried to correct the things that bothered me.

First off; his head. I know, basically this isn’t a new pose or a particular spectacular one, but I really like how he’s looking down to the viewer. To display a certain “superiority”, he still needs to hold his chin up.

I also changed his physique a bit. Now, he’s much juicier. I remember the robe really bothered me because it was covering so much and made him look bigger than he actually was – and not in a good way. This time, I had the same problem, simply because his clothing is so loose, but I tackled the problem by snatching his waist with the belt! You can see in the sketches that the clothing is actually really tight to his body (esp. in the arm/shoulder area) but in the end dude just looks ripped and massive. Not a thing to complain imo, but I need to keep this in mind in the future, so that I don’t overdo it at some point. I know he’s much bigger than in canon, but I actually really like this look and if Shiggy gets a buff physique, why not Dabi too?

Next, the robe itself; I changed it from being silk-like to linen… or at least I tried to. Different fabric will create different kind of folds and after looking at the manga panel, I noticed it’s actually a lot stiffer than in my old drawing. Tell me if you see a difference!
I really don’t like his hips/pants though. It cost me a lot of time and I couldn’t figure out a better way. They seem a bit narrow in comparison, esp. when you think of his legs. But it was so minor in the grand scheme of things, that I made the best of it. Maybe it’s a quest for future-hoot!

Funny side note: At the time I was drawing the old one, we only had the panel where the villains came through the portal. Shigaraki was in front and took basically half the screen and Dabi only had a small sideview. You couldn’t see below his waistline that’s actually the reason why I just put the robe over his pants altogether – I wanted to stick to canon as much as possible without thinking of how it might look like. Now, we have a full understanding of his design and I obviously added this to the new version.

I was really surprised at how good the hands were drawn in the original artwork, so I literally changed nothing, I’ve just redrawn them.

The fire is another major thing that I developed over the year. Now it’s super bright and somewhat blends into the linework.

And lastly – effect layers! Not gonna lie, the original is super bland and boring in comparison. I tried some smoke/mist, but it’s barely noticeable. I changed this and gave it all the extras it deserves haha!

I can’t wait to redo this again in a year!!! It’s so fun to see the progress.