That heart is due for collecting!

 

Self Critique: The top section of the outfit weren’t really meshing well. I probably should’ve looked up a few more outfit references than what I was given before going full-in on this pic.

 

Still art’ing during a pandemic! This was over a year in the making, and finally it’s done! This is the second pic done for a friend of mine, this time as a commission. The first pic done for her was part of an Art Trade (when I still allowed them). I’ll link to that below at the end.

 

I was commissioned to draw her Phantom Thief OC, Arimi. The designing phase took a long while as this was done nearly from scratch, with some rough sketches from the commissioner plus references. The mask at first was a full mask. However I did bring up making it a half mask like the Phantom of the Opera mask (or a partial mask somewhat similar to Philemon from Persona 2) due to her hair already covering part of her face. The commissioner eventually had that idea in mind, so we agreed to make it half a mask. The scythe was decided upon early, but I opted to add the side handles, similar to the farming tool (and the one Death is sometimes depicted with). There was a ranged weapon planned, a Winchester Lever-Action rifle. However the new character in P5R had one already. It was eventually switched to a crossbow. However due to this commission taking longer than expected, plus difficulty on my end depicting a crossbow from the front, I opted to leave it out and draw Arimi with just her scythe. There was some messing around with one of the arms holding the scythe. Initially the back arm was lowered and more relaxed, with no sense of urgency to swing the scythe. This was contrasted with the facial expression and the leaping position of the legs. I wondered if raising the back arm would change things, and it did for the better, adding that urgency that was missing.

 

The background was made using a 3D asset from Clip Studio Paint. I was thinking of using one of the many pictures I took from the Flatiron District in New York City throughout last year, but settled on just using this 3D model of a generic building since I wouldn’t have to crop anything out. I then converted it’s layer to a flat raster layer, changed it to grayscale, maxed out the contrast, and messed with the brightness to get that monochrome look like in the intro to Persona 5. The stars was a brush that I got from Trickypup on Tumblr. I’ll link to it at the bottom of the description.

 

Done on Clip Studio Paint Pro. Wacom Cintiq 16 tablet used. Body-chan model traced for construction lines, then drawn freehand the rest of the way.

Arimi (c) IRL buddy