lyxel

i don't think covid happened in the aa universe (and if it did Apollo wouldn't be hanging out at Cosmos lol) but here's a masked version too bc cute <3

For that second picture, I ended up redrawing Nico's expression 3 times, since I wasn't really sure which one captured best the "completely caught off guard" feel I wanted to portray.

The first version I drew I also had Maki standing more upright:

I thought it made the pose look stiff though so I increased the tilt on Maki's body, even if it made it look less "solid". I'm still not sure if it's better though. Maybe I could have exaggerated the tilt a little more. Or maybe these are small details that only I notice because I drew it? lol.

I always feel like I lack the "artistic sense" to be able to instinctively understand and pick out what works better for things like these. It goes for gesture, character expressions, or even color palettes. I've seen people say that practicing drawing is as much developing your "eyes" as an artist as it is developing your motor skills. I hope they're right.

When I put my drawings side by side with the ones from the artists that inspire me, my works always look so bad in comparison, even the ones I felt looked great while I was working on them, lol.

I still have a long ways to go.