Freljord Rakan??

Hey hey.

So last night, I (finally) finished a detailed portrait!! =(^.^)= What do you guys think?? =^×^=

Haha, yeah. I'm hilarious. Anyway, I wanted to draw mah boi, mah dude, mah main man (/my ex-one-trick champion) Rakan! 

I could've drawn a pic of him and Xayah together, but... too much effort... Maybe that'll be my next portrait though. Freljord Xayah would look so cool, amiright.

Uhkay, let's get on with this! First up, I made a rough sketch. Radical.

I legit hate this sketch. Which, might I point out, is a good thing; seeing flaws in your own artwork and improving upon them is the best way to get better at your own craft. Also, it's just a sketch. You're supposed to hate the sketch. If the sketch is too good, it makes a fine drawing all by itself, which is not what I'm trying to achieve. I'm not illustrating a Practical Guide to Dragons book here.

So what I did here was choose a relatively pale tone in a cooler shade, leaving room for two shades darker and one shade lighter. I used the darker shades over the first colour, contouring and shadowing, and following that with a highlighting foundation I got from my online store, and you can use the code Vanessa for 30% off your next purchase!

Also, I gave him that signature war paint using a pencil tool (though I would actually recommend using a marker or watercolour brush for this, in hindsight). Boi's gotta keep those cheekbones lookin' sharpp.

Drawing hair is a tedious activity, especially when the subject has such light, fluffy locks. I used markers for this, which blend very wierdly on ArtRage, but blend nonetheless. I used two light blues for most of his hair, doing lots of soft blending. For his fringey thing, I used a multitude of sapphires and periwinkles with long, sweeping strokes. Gotta be sleek!

In case you didn't notice, I added eyes and brows (which look hella snatched, if I do say so myself *buffs nails*)

Eventually I clothed him. I went for the basic caped look, which Rakan generally seems to prefer anyway.

So at this point, I'm just making a blue version of his base skin. I left out the bird skull on his shoulder, but kept the lovely spray of feathers. This process was almost the exact same thing as his hair, but more stressful and precise. (I listened to a lot of Dream State during the more annoying parts of this drawing...) (K but seriously, check them out, boys. I'm in love with this band, UGH) (im not sponsored i swear)

Totally forgot the ears until now. Oops.

Protip: add sideburn hair over the base of the ear to make it blend into the drawing better. Fabu bb 👌

Just some general contrasting touches here. I wanted the drawing to pop a little more overall, and darkening certain areas will draw the eye better than a flat, monotone colour palette.

Pull out the spray can! It's time to Taric-ify this background.

Now, I'm using this ultra-shimmer highlighter on top of my look, which will blend out into this really nice glow when you set the blend mode and opacity to Highlight and 25%, respectively (again, use code Vanessa for 30% off your first order!!)

Okat, so that didn't do much. It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. Trust me! It's ESSENTIAL for your look!! Use my promo code PLZ sisterssss T_T mother Nessie's gotta make a living too, hUntY

...ok, so yeah. I used the spray can again for some snowflakes and frosty misty tendril things, then lowered the opacity a bit. Pretty.

More snowflakes! Also, I shaded the corners with a lovely rich purple, further Taric-ifying the background. Boom! Signed and saved! A la fin!

Total time spent on this picture: way too many hours. Like, somewhere between seven and ten. (I'm still new to digital art, to be fair...)

So finally, a proper picture for my first-ever one-trick. I owe him that much, I guess. 

Anyway.

I feel like I'm mostly inspired by League of Legends characters lately, so that's probably what I'll be posting at least half the time for a little while. Next one, though, I want to show off some graphite pics of my original characters (cause I'm trying to convince the internet that this isn't a gaming fanart blog...)

As Rakan says: "Tune in, turn on, drop out!"

(I can't believe this game is legal.)

-nessa