All that elevator action can wear a girl out sometimes.

Self Critique: I wish I had a better idea of how to do the arm to our left. As it is, it doesn’t look right to me. Background-wise, on the building all the way to the back-right, the light of the spire doesn’t look too great. I managed to fix the other lights, but the white one I was rather stuck with how to fix it. The perspective of the clock building and the building next door to it is a bit fucked.

And the last pic for this wave is another obscure retro videogame babe from a somewhat obscure arcade game, Elevator Action Returns. I first became aware of the game from the song Feedback Romance when it played on No-Life Radio, a videogame music radio station (you might’ve heard me talk about it on Twitter). I immediately went to look for it on YouTube and put the song on repeat. The song is really smooth and kinda nostalgic. Coupled with the 1990s New York skyline that the OST’s cover had, it really put me in a very calm mood. When coming up with the next wave of artwork, I knew I had to include something from this game, and what better subject than the game’s gun expert, Edie Burret.

Unlike Mei, who I could take some liberties with while still being recognizable, Edie was a different case. She’s only ever seen in her red-pink tanktop and camo pants. At first I was going to draw her in an elevator (like in the game she’s from) having some “alone time”. But then the idea of doing a city at night started to creep in. That’s when I decided to draw her in a red cocktail dress, as if she’s off duty (but still on guard with her gun still handy, like a femme fatale). The challenge was that, again, Edie is very obscure, and barely any fanart of her exists online. All discernible features of hers wouldn’t be present. So I had to make some choices. One was to add some jewelry related to her being a weapons expert. The next was giving her a red headband similar to the headset she uses while on duty in the game.

Since this also has a variant that is going up too, let’s talk about that. Her lingerie was something that I wanted to make simple but still have some fanciness to it. Clip Studio also has a really cool way of laying down lacy patterns, so I wanted to give that a test drive. For the design of the lingerie, I wanted to tap into the fashion sense of the 90s. If we all remember, lingerie in the late 80s/ early 90s had a style to them, most notable being the high-waist panties. I had a couple of references on hand, one being fancier than the other. But something in between would suffice. Not too fancy, but not too simple.

Next was the background. Last time I did city buildings was on Condado Beach last year. But this time I had to draw them at night. My first instinct would’ve been to color them like I would during the day, and then apply a filter to change the scene to night. But cities at night have a different lighting and shadow to them that a filter was not going cover. So I made silhouettes first, making sure to use dark colors. And then add small lines where the windows would go. I remember making a note of how light and shadow play a role one evening when I was walking around outside (I live in New York after all) to see how windows and facades would react to light, shadow, and street lights. I also had some references on hand of several 80s/90s anime screenshots of cities, as well as the cover art to After 5 Clash by Toshiki Kadomatsu (whose music I was listening to at one point while making this pic). The Glow Dodge filter for the light really helped to make the windows pop. To also help with Edie’s recognizable-ness, I added the cover to Elevator Action Returns to the billboard in the back, as well as Taito’s logo on one of the buildings..

Finally, the name. Like the song that inspired the pic, from the very beginning I new I was going to give it this name. Hopefully I can do another city scene again soon. This one had some pretty great results.

Done on Clip Studio Paint. Intuos4 table used.
Edie Burret, Elevator Action Returns, EAR cover art, and Taito logo are © Taito Corporation/Square Enix