Magical Babes

please do not use or repost this anywhere without my permission. thank you. 

so almost a week ago now, i decided i wanted to learn to draw noses from the front. i always just draw 3/4 view noses when drawing characters from the front and it's kinda dumb? so i decided to try to learn to do it like a normal person. and around that time, i was also thinking about updating my magical girl au and giving the characters actual weapons rather than those magical staff things. except rajata. she can keep her spiky mace ball of doom. 

so here's mark. i didn't draw him in the original magical girls piece because at the time i drew it, mark wasn't going to be a main character in the story. but then i decided to change the entire premise of the story and now he's a main character. yay! so uh his outfit is kinda dumb? i have no idea what kind of clothes a magical boy would even wear. in the original design, he had those elf shoes darshan used to have, but the outfit ended up looking like some super weird pajamas so i changed the boots to regular boots and added some random straps on his legs. i think maybe it helped a little. but the outfit still looks hella dorky. it was going to have a cape originally, but with all the stars in the outfit, it made him look like some children's magician so i scrapped that. uh, the shading isn't super great on his torso (not that it ever is with me), and his hair looks kinda crappy. but i like how his nose turned out. shape-wise, it's perfect. i knowwwhis hand is screwed up agh i always do that. i draw one that looks fine in the sketch, then i ruin it when lining and colouring. hands are on my to-work-on list. 
i have no fucking idea how to draw a crossbow that looks good. i'm so sorry. it's just a super small handheld hunting crossbow. but it's magically enhanced sorta. it magically reloads itself and the arrows are full of magical energy, so they pack a strong punch.

jaaade my gal. one day i'll draw you with wings that actually look like wings. one day. so yeah uh have i mentioned that i really love my new eye style? cause i do. look at that intense stare. she is going to mess you right up. ye shading is kind of weak with her for the most part, but i like how the shadows on the skin came out. and her nose also looks pretty good. mark and jade have the best noses in this drawing. yeah btw idk if i mentioned this but the reason jade's nose is like that is that she broke it when she was like ten or so? she was trying to fly. but fugiens wings aren't developed enough to fly until at least age 12. so uh. that happened. 
i used the noise filter to give her little cape thing some texture. u can't really tell haha. but i think it's an improvement.
for her weapon, i gave her boomerangs. i didn't want to give her a heavy handheld weapon because her arms are pretty weak (thanks obama), so i thought about what other kind of weapon i could give her. because she's jade, i knew i wanted something that she could use in the most overdramatic way possible. i considered whips, but decided that they would be too difficult to control. so here are some super sharp, magical boomerangs. she strikes all kinds of ridiculous poses every time she throws them. what a dork.

and here we have precious princess rajata. it was while sketching her for this drawing that i realized just how little she really is. i mean, you always know, but it was at this point that it fully sunk in. her left arm is kinda weird. too thin at some parts. and her nose didn't turn out as well bc i messed up with the highlights. i wasn't exactly sure how to do it since she has kind of a concave bridge. and then i. yeaahhhhh. also her hair...don't worry, i know what i did wrong. i'll fix it up next time. the problem is that i usually prefer to work with a large canvas. and while this drawing is pretty large, that's because there are so many characters. each individual character is fairly small, and thus, harder to shade. i suppose i could have done them each individually and then imported them into a new canvas and scaled, but i had to scale them together since the photos were all different sizes. so i had to do them all together. so i had some brush size issues. but yeah i'll fix that for next time.
BUT HOT DAMN CHECK OUT THE GLASSES THAT ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE!!!! AND AREN'T JUST GIANT RECTANGLES ON HER FACE!!! HELL YEAH!!!!
how do you draw a spike from above? i just don't know. 

darshan, my boy. as i was sketching him out i thought, hey, what if i take the tallest character i have, already taller than average, and put him in high heels? and then put him next to his super tiny sister? that sounds like a gr8 plan! and you know what? i stand by that. because he rocks those heels better than anyone else i've seen. so yeah uh the shading on his face is kinda odd looking. the highlights blend more easily than the shadows with his skintone so i should start doing the highlights on a separate layer from the shadows if i want it all to work. if i blurred any more, the higlights wouldn't have worked. but then that had a negative impact on the shadows. alas. but that does not take away from his badassery. the highlights on his legs are kiiiiinda weird. it's the angle he has his legs at. makes it all weird. i decided to get rid of the tiara from his design. it just didn't seem like something he'd wear. but now his head looks so bare. maybe he needs a little hat or something. for his sleeve things, i just did the same thing i did with jade's cape. and for a weapon, i decided to give him magical pistols. which he wears in leg holsters. cause i mean his legs are out anyway so like. it's just convenient. like mark's crossbow, the guns are magically enhanced. auto-reload and magical bullets. bc darshan is a bamf. 

and here is actual queen francine clarke. what a babe. the shading on her tutu makes no sense. well, i guess it makes a little sense. like 0.7 sense maybe. i think i need to play with the colours on the skin shading pallete i have for her. i feel like the shadows aren't dark enough. i messed with the contrast for this drawing, so it looks a little better, but definitely not as good as jade's. and i fucked up with her torso shading, as always. but other than that, i think my only real complaints about her are that her feet and wrists are a bit small. oh, and her nose. ahh. what. does it look pointy at least? it should.
i decided to give her swords as a weapon, since they...idk if this makes sense, but they seem like a very graceful weapon i guess? and francine is a super graceful gal (being a ballerina and all), so they just seemed to suit her. but i just realized i forgot to draw scabbards for them. so i guess they just kinda materialize out of thin air when she needs them. francine could snap her fingers and the whole world would bow down to her let's be real. she is the ultimate babe.

yep, this description seems about long and rambly enough. yay me. 

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