Hooo nelly I know this is late. But I had good reason!

Self Critique: On Chelsí, the hand holding the gift. It may not have been a good idea to put her ring and pinky finger like that. It was supposed to be for a palette, then I switched it to a gift box and never bothered to change it. On Belinda, the hand holding the mistletoe. I’m not quite feeling how I drew that hand.

Maaaaaan oh maaaan this was a lot of work. And you guys saw it from all the previews I put up. I planned to have this up before Three Kings Day. Obviously that didn’t happen. And I hoped to have it up by Jan. 8. That didn’t happen either. Most of the work went into the chibis. We’ll get to them in a bit. For now, let’s talk the characters. The plan for both Chelsí and Belinda was to dress them up in Christmas outfits. For Chelsí, I was ready to just give her a plain red sweater, and line her skirt with that white fuzzy fur you see on Santa hats. However I got the idea from my sis (yes, my sister) to give her an ugly sweater. So I made a design for it on a separate canvas, applied it to her sweater, and warped it accordingly with the mesh transform tool. Her was going to remain red. But it didn’t dawn on me until I saw other artists and cosplayers wearing red plaid that it’s also associated with Christmas as well. So I made a plaid pattern on a separate canvas and applied it to skirt as well.

At first, it was planned that Chelsí and Belinda were going to hold objects associated with their profession. Chelsí was going to hold a paintbrush and palette. That was changed to a gift box and her holding the mistletoe like a paintbrush. With Belinda, her broom was switched to a huge candy cane. Her other hand was a first going to hold a plain old ornament. But when I thought of how Finne and Kai would be drawn, I switched it to a mistletoe (which spurred the change on Chelsí to a gift box and mistletoe of her own). As for her outfit, she’s more fantastical than her down to earth counterpart from another universe. So I changed the skirt part of her dress to be more open and flowing then her usual tight fitting dress. I also lined her shoes, dress and cape with Santa fur. And unlike Chelsí switching her beret for a deer hat, Belinda would keep her witch hat, but with a Christmas twist.

Moving to the environment. The centerpiece would obviously be the tree. But one thing I wanted to do was thank all the people that I’ve interacted with and motivated my to continue drawign in 2017. So I planned for them to be ornaments. So I made sure to keep Belinda and Chelsí separate enough to show much of the tree. Chelsí and Belinda’s respective sidekicks, Finne and Kai, would be on the bottom oggling their masters. Kai would be busy arranging the “star” on the tree. And an unlit Jackie would be doing his usual thing by reading a book. Employed lots of different techniques and brushes for everything else. for the tree, I used the Running Color Edge watercolor brush for that rough look. The garland was done using the Darker Bleed India Ink brush, then finised off with a sparkle pattern brush. The gift boxes were shaded using part of a technique I picked up from one of Bokuman’s tutorials. The area outside the windows I’m most proud of. I’m still not sure if I should talk about it since it’s something I picked up from one of Sakimichan’s Patron-Only tutorial videos on Patreon. In time I’ll maybe talk about it once I get the hang of it and it’s something I do on the regular. But let’s just say things went by much faster, and came out looking awesome. Also, for a little bit of universe-play, the area outside is represented by the characters (Left window = near Belinda’s Study, right window = Paris, France).

Now for the ornaments. each ornament represents a person who has impacted my life in some way in 2017 and, as stated earlier, motivated me to continue drawing. I actually have a separate upload prepped to go up in a bit with longer statements thanking all of them. But for now they are, starting from the top and going left to right: Jet Set Radio Live, Hakuzo (Pixiv/Pawoo), Fella (Deviantart), Jax Spade, stb-chan (Gashi-Gashi), Iristar Nubatama (RCTR), Fuu from Samurai Champloo with Genzoman, Kimi (Sakimichan), Swimsuit Succubus, Bunny Ayumi, Double Maximus, Helena of Saffron (magicpotion), Mieko (Xiaowoo), Velma (Bokuman), Megumi (J-List), Kaho Shibuya, Artzie Music, Meru, Jack Frost, and Yurika Ten.

Thank you to everyone, and have a (very late) Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Done on Clip Studio Paint Pro. Intuos4 Tablet used. Body-chan model traced for schematic skeleton, then drawn freehand the rest of the way.

Chelsí, Finne, Belinda, Kai, Tasma, and Jackie (c) DeadPhoenX. All other characters present are (c) respective owners.