September MOTM: Creepy unicorn painting process // nsfw

download the attached .zip to access the process pack for september's monster of the month painting, featuring a creepy unicorn and her witch girlfriend! 

this one was tricky in that i wanted to show off as many of the unicorn's hands as possible, including her "pokers," and i also wanted to give a clear view of her gorgeous long mane. as for the sexual act itself i wanted to draw some fingering and i wanted them to be facing each other; in order give the viewer a better view of the unicorn lady's hair i almost had her raise her head up, keeping a straight neck with the mane pouring down like a waterfall. but that pose looked less intimate, so i opted for her head being lowered to nuzzle her girlfriend's cheek instead.

i already had the colour scheme mentally sorted out before i even started the picture; i wanted to use the same pale colours as in the concept sketch, and i didn't want the background to be much darker either. the tricky part about that is that i didn't want the shadows to be too dark or the highlights to be too damn pale, but i also didn't want the picture to look too flat; i had to balance somewhere inbetween and i'm extremely happy with the result (but i also can't help but wonder what it might have looked like if i had made some different decisions along the way...?).

the colourscheme as a whole is relatively limited and has a cold yellow undertone, because i felt like it enhanced the creepyness-factor. i could have used a pale blue undertone, but that might have made the picture look more ethereal and fairytale-like rather than the mildly unsettling vibe i was going for. speaking of, the unicorn lade is capable of looking way more creepy than this; just check out the concept art [link coming soon!]. but, for obvious reasons, i felt like she prooobably wouldn't have her creepy face on during quality time with her girlfriend, yknow?

i paid particular attention (and devoted a fair bunch of time to) the unicorn's mane and tail tuft. after applying the basic gradients to her hair i worked on several layers (set to either "normal" or "multiply") and added more and more detail in both darker and lighter colours. i used the lasso select + airbrush method as well as a small brush for drawing on thinner lines, to give it some stylised texture. i'm also very happy with how the rendering of the witch's skin turned out; i used a mixture of irregular, textured brushes and square brushes and managed to achieve a balance between smooth highlights and more "decisive" shadows in a way that creates both form and texture. i added some darker shadows to both characters by adding gradients in a medium yellowish-greyish-green colour to several separate layers set to "multiply," at different percentages of transparency. 

in contrast to the long flowing locks of the unicorn's mane and tail tuft, the texture and detail of her coat is kind of minimal, and her face is intentionally left rather flat-looking. this is partly to avoid over-loading the picture with too much detail that would make it look too messy and "busy"--but also, the stylistic contrast between their faces is fully intentional. i think i've mentioned before that i like to use contrasting styles in one and the same picture, mixing heavy stylisation with more realistic renders.

this picture is yet another good example of what i've been doing with my linearts lately (instead of keeping them opaque and colouring parts of it). i used a small, slightly textured brush when drawing it, and put great care into the details--primarily the lines of the unicorn's mane and tail. in fact i re-drew parts of it a couple times, since i wanted it to look a very particular way. immediately after finishing the lines i set the layer to "multiply," changed the colour to a medium brown, and lowered the transparency to about 50%. you can clearly see the difference between steps 02 and 03. during the later stages of the process i went over the lines, cleaning them up, filling some of them in with darker colours--but i tried to avoid making the lines too dark, i didn't want them to stand out too much from the colouring, if that makes sense? 

one of the main challenges with this image was that there's a lot of things overlapping--their limbs, including the unicorn's six arms, all of her hair... like i said, i wanted to show off her long hair, but there's some places where it obscures the rest of her body and some places where her mane and main body are almost the same colour, making it a bit more difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. i tried to make sure that it's easy to tell what's going on in the image, but parts of it is a little bit confusing and in hindsight i might have changed a few things--mainly in that i would have removed some of the tresses of hair spilling down the unicorn's side, to give a clearer view of her arms. 

anyway, hope you enjoyed this process pack! as always, comment below if you have any questions <3

// art + characters © me.