oc | hilladar portrait wip

grand duke and imperial general needs a proper portrait.

it's also another instance of me making clean linework to paint on top of, and honestly? it's so [ f*cking ] helpful in keeping the structure of my character while i render.

because i used to skip the linework step and head straight to flats and rendering, and every time i see how different the sketch is to the final, i get disappointed upon seeing things i wish i kept from the sketch over to the rendering.

so far, painting on top of linework is helping rather than painting over sketches. and yeah, it's time-consuming, but for me it gives me artistic satisfaction. it also helps me with one of my goals of taking more time with my illustrations than rushing to finish it — to achieve that artistic satisfaction.

a little ramble there, but it's exciting to me. :D i can't wait to finish this.