Let’s end this Summer on a quiet note… or at least as quiet and one can make it.

Self Critique: The hand higher up on the parasol could’ve probably done better with different finger arrangement. The clouds in the background are a little on the weak side and not as thick as I’d like them to be.

Here’s the last summer pic of the season, and one that’s a little more quieter than the other two summer pics. I actually noticed that the qipao swimsuit was all the rage on Pixiv this past Summer. At first I was thinking of skipping it since I wanted to draw one of my other girls in a swimsuit. However the problem was that of the ones I wanted to include, they were each facing redesigns to their normal appearance. I pushed it with Rhapsody. But the others would be too drastic if I were to introduce them now outside of their normal garb. So I had to make due with Xiuying and give her a qipao swimsuit.

The design was easy to come up with. The question was what kind pattern I would use. I settled on a white flower/green stem pattern. It would resemble her normal qipao a little bit (which you can see sticking out in her luggage behind her). The addition of a sheer mantle was made during the sketch phase, as well as the back portion of the swimsuit that would theoretically (and teasingly) cover her butt a little bit. I wanted something that would flare out from her for some grace and flow, and the long ties behind her clued me in that I should probably do that. The white double buns are a summer-only accessory, as well as her bracelets and shoes. Side note about the shoes, I was about to make them sandals. But I just couldn’t make it work as I had trouble drawing a planted foot. It was also sort of interrupting the… line…. flow…. it’s hard to explain. So I looked around, and settled on heeled sandal.

Before moving on the background, lemme talk about the parasol. This was actually the beginning of a thing I would start doing with my Body-chan models, and started using makeshift props to help with visualizing certain objects. In this case, I made the model hold a pen’s ink tube (with all the ink emptied of course) since it was thin enough. It was also short enough to substitute for a parasol’s handle since it came from a multicolor pen. It proved to be very useful since it would place the arms in the right position to hold it for when I started sketching out the parasol.

Okay then, now the background. All throughout this set, I had this idea of all of them taking place on the same beach. Rhapsody was first, climbing up the tree. Next was Chelsí and Belinda not too far away from the tree that Rhapsody was climbing (which if you notice is to the back right side of that pic, behind Chelsí). Now we’re at the base of that palm tree, where Xiuying has set up her spot (and where Finne is being flung off the beach ball he was on). So yes, all three of these pics are connected! This was the most challenging of background to do in terms of lighting. Since there’s more trees here, there’s more shade (with some bright spots mixed in). So I had to split up where the filters were gonna be, as well as use a different ambient color filter. Took a little futzing with the colors to get one that looked right. Even though it might not logically make sense, I let some light hit Xiuying’s eyes to make them stand out a but more in the shadows. Once I finished and looked over everything with fresh eyes, I started to feel like something was missing. That’s when I added the purple flowers. I actually took a bunch of reference pictures of during Spring and when I went to my cousin’s wedding in New Hampshire back in June. Now that I got them extracted out of my phone and into the comp, they should be getting a lot more use now.

Alright then. This wrap up my summer shenanigans with these four girls. Hope you enjoyed!

Done on Clip Studio Paint Pro. Intuos4 Tablet used. Body-Chan model traced for schematic skeleton, then drawn freehand the rest of the way.
Xiuying Gushan and Finne are (c) DeadPhoenX