Commission WIP: Constantine (Pt. 1)

In January, a Patreon supporter commissioned me to draw an updated reference sheet for their OC, Constantine. Here's the original ref!

While it would have been pretty easy to draw a straightforward ref sheet, I've been wanting to expand my commission options to be more ~aesthetic~ and not just limit myself to the tarot card layout. One commission style I've been wanting to offer is those paper doll style illustrations like I drew for the Sugarplum Ladies. Thankfully, my client was very gracious and let me explore this style with their commission!

The client wanted me to draw more lifelike proportions than the original ref sheet, and there are some changes we made to the character design too (will talk more about this later).

 The left was structured more like a typical ref sheet, but the right was more of the style I personally wanted to go for - and thankfully, the client vibed with the right more too. In addition to closeups of certain accessories, this would feature a cameo closeup of the face (to showcase the makeup) and a makeup palette in lieu of the typical color swatches that you see on a ref sheet.

There were also some updates the client wanted to make to Constantine's design - changing his hairstyle to a more slick, finger-wave style, changing some accessories to solid pink, and changing the texture of the fur to be more soft and cotton-like. We played around with different options, and we'll probably go with the hair on the left + the coat on the right. I also offered some design changes of my own, with the shape of the crown and the collar design.

So with the composition and character design decided, here's the rough sketch! While the art itself still needs to be drawn, I did finalize the border and background and it's nice to knock that out of the way. I personally love how the heart + wing motif turned out.

I'm pretty happy with how the border turned out with the winged heart filigree (filigree is always so much harder to design than I think!) and I'd love to use it for other commissions as well. I think this sort of commission would be really fun to draw for magical girl OCs or lolita wearers, so I have an excuse to draw more frilly dresses 🤭

Hope I can share more progress on this next month!