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Hiei and Yukina for @creatingblackcharacters' Melanin Beam Challenge this year! Happy birthday!!
Last year I drew Kurama, because I'm able to draw him (and Hiei) from memory, so it let me focus on the research and design adjustments (rather than having to also learn a new character from zero). But also like...while I don't follow the tags, I do occasionally run across YYH fanart, and I've noticed that when people change any of the guys' skin tones it seems to always be Hiei (and/or Yusuke) who they make darker. Which reeks of colorism (in the "darker = more aggressive" manner), so. Fuck that, pretty boy Kurama got to be unambiguously Black and beautiful last year.
This year I went for the twins, because...well, I'll grant that usually folks are only drawing the main four guys, at least from what I've seen, but. Hey y'all who usually draw Hiei with darker skin...how would you draw Yukina, if you haven't yet? If your instinct is to make her look different from him, why is that?
My process, rambling thoughts, and a version without the deckled edges under the readmore!
Have the no-deckled-edges version before my rambling, so you can see better (without having to scroll a thousand years) how Yukina has hooked her thumb around Hiei's to (kind of) hold his hand! Because he may not want to suffer physical contact from pretty much anybody unless it's a fight, but she is allowed because he loves her (even if he may never be comfortable saying it out loud).
One of the other reasons I went with the twins is because Rebelle updated and added a symmetry tool, which gave me the idea to use it to give them mirrored poses! Also, where Kurama was done with oil brushes (for the impasto effect, and to test out the new bristle brushes), plus a color palette based on paints for cel animation? For this one, I instead used a palette based on Prismacolor colored pencils, and challenged myself to only use colors I physically have (so I can eventually test out/compare some digital vs physical results, for color blending and such). I also used my colored pencil brush set (that I am still working on refining aaaaa), because I need to do a proper practice pieces with them to see what settings need adjusting!
(I've mostly just been doing scribbly tests as I build the brushes. I've not had the time/energy to try them in a full piece (though I did start an old lineart recolor), which is VERY different from test scribbles, and this helped highlight some things that I was able to fix while working on it! The brushes still need more fixes, but...part of that is a "go on the forums and politely ask the devs if they would kindly consider making an adjustment or two to how the blend curve works at the lowest point, because while the previous version may have technically been bugged, it worked better for this very specific purpose of looking like colored pencils, via avoiding overblending fine texture into digital smoothness.")
I also used a paper that has little dark flecks in it, some blue and some brown, because it gave me a subtle impression of both snow and embers! I had to decrease the scale of it slightly, because it's a more rough paper that made it difficult to get even coverage with the colored pencils. So I had to find a size that gave me a more fine texture, without totally losing visibility of the flecks I picked it for.
(And then I messed that up at one point when I tested a brush setting change with a smoother paper real quick, forgot to change the paper back, and colored Hiei's coat with a totally different paper texture...so I had to erase and redo it to make the texture match. Which was actually the second time I redid his coat, since the first time I colored it was one of the points when I realized my brush settings needed fixing, because the shading looked weird. I also almost made the hiruiseki the wrong color. >.> I reflexively made them cream (in part also because it stands out better against Yukina's kimono so my brain went "this makes design sense"), but then remembered the necklace ones are blue and THAT IS AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION DUE TO THE SOURCE OF EACH COLOR/TYPE OF STONE)
I also didn't draw Hiei last year because I didn't have time and he felt like the "obvious" choice, as far as his hair just...needing texture, the end, done, easy-peasy, now it's a sculpted afro. (Though freeform locs would also work really well.) Kurama took more research and consideration, and was more fun in that way. (Though the cornrow design could definitely look better, and I have SO MANY thoughts that I didn't put in that post, so like. I'll probably do another drawing or edit with him sometime, with each age we see him at, and ramble more in that post.)
But drawing Hiei and Yukina let me at least ponder a tiny bit more over her hair, and how it'd be similar-to-but-different-from Kurama's (since the silhouettes are so close). I went with a low puff twist-out for her, though it took a bit to settle on what to do for her bangs...I'd considered finger coils, but ultimately made them twist-outs too, so she could have accurately maximum floof. Though the shape is a little flat on the right side because I didn't want to totally cover her pointy ear 'cause I think it's cute.
