Simplification Through Chibification

I thought I could make some strides towards style simplification if I applied my ideas about how to simplify features on a character format that is supposed, by definition, to be simplified, and therefore I started studies on a chibi style! Now, these are all approximately the same simple pose, but I do believe that I'm onto something here. These all look adorable, but are still very much identifiable as my style, for better and for worse - and still, there is a whole lot that I was able to streamline, which made this a worthwhile exercise.

Here are some of the things I was able to tweak and change to achieve this result:

- Used a new "pencil-like" inking brush that is crisper than my usual one, but still easier to handle that the fine pen ones.

- Settled on a 3 head tall formula, with four stubby fingers on each hand, and trying to stick to simple hand positions to allow for simplicity.

- Instead of a strand-based logic for the hair and tail, I try to convey fluff through triangles, something that I've seen many artists do with anthro characters.

- Nearly any unnecessary line is dispensed, except for the ones necessary to convey the shape of the character features. An exception is the eyes, which I'm still doing pretty detailed to allow for flexibility in expressiveness.

The problem with this exercise is that, after a start that saw me doing these pretty quickly, I actually started getting slower, something that puzzled me because I felt that practice would make it easier and faster for me to get satisfactory results. Ultimately, I felt that I was being held back by my concern with consistency, taking extra care so that each subsequent drawing was in model with all the previous ones. I really don't know how to address that at the moment, but I really feel that this is useful, and I thank my patrons for giving me this chance to address this aspect of my production!

Apart from all of this, I really hope that you find these delightful. As a special treat, I'm offering to draw one chibi portrait like the above displayed to each current patron who messages me here requesting it (don't forget to include reference). As usual, thank you for your kind support!