'Hurry Up' Process! - Two Characters In Panic XD

Hey everyone! Here is the full-length process video of 'Hurry Up': https://youtu.be/znig5SrLi2M

The process behind this illustration started with the pursuit of a reference of two animals interacting in an engaging manner. This was part of an effort to write an article about designing anthropomorphic characters from animals, as highlighted in a previous post. The chosen reference featured a large black bird and a smaller white one, interpreted as the larger bird scolding the smaller, which sparked the idea for the illustration.

I decided to choose a Victorian costume because I recently created a similar composition for 'Boss,' last week's illustration featuring a large black character and a smaller one. However, those costumes appeared to be from more recent times. So, to avoid repetition, I essentially took a step back in time. The desire was for this piece to have an anime feel, influenced by personal admiration for anime aesthetics, particularly from "Vampire D," while striving for originality by adapting the fundamental composition and reshaping ideas to make them familiar yet distinct.

In my head, the story for the drawing was about the big one yelling at the small one, not because he's mad but because they're both in trouble, maybe with a big monster or something coming after them. I wanted this to make sense with how they looked in my reference, and I thought it would look cool, kind of like in 'Vampire D,' but more simple in how it looks and the colors, like how you see in cartoons.

For the costumes, I mixed in some Victorian, military, and gothic stuff, and even put in cool details like claws on the shoes to kinda hint at the animals they're based on. I wanted to make sure you could see the link between what I made up and the real animals, hoping it would make the whole thing more interesting for people looking at it.

In the video where I show how I made this, you'll see I start with the basic lines, then slowly add in colors and shadows to get the picture right in my head. I paid extra attention to the extra character, adding little bits to make the story richer. This drawing really comes together with the lines, but I use colors to set the vibe. You can check out the video and the PSD to see how it all happened. If you wanna talk about it, just hit me up with a comment, a message, or on Discord.