My work on SSStylish

Hello everyone. I am utmost pleased to announce the release of our SSStylish DMC Fashion Zine in which I created a spread artwork :^3 . Amazing project that we had a lot of fun with! I am so happy to have been in this!!

Link to it here!

Tease of my work: (this is 5% of the full illustration o_O)

The theme of this zine is pretty genius, and the mods and other contributors did an amazing job.

i got to draw Malphas, Beryl, Nevan, V and Lady for my illustration! A lot of cool women!!! and V, who i usually draw as female but stuck with canon for this zine of course ^^

These are some of my favorite characters, my other picks were Dante and Morrison, and Nero and Kyrie. I got pretty far into the planning stage of these fashion concepts, and will probably draw their illustrations sometime. For Dante and Morrison, i wanted to do a piece showcasing italian-american fashion and black dandyism inspired by the Superfine exhibit among others. I wanted to illustrate immigration communities influence on the american noir and prohibition gangster cultural aesthetics and i think Dante's fashion style is influenced not only by the girls but also his mentor. For Nero and Kyrie, ive been wanting to do something angelpunk or innocence gothic influenced, which are aesthetics tied heavily to the 2000s and to me DMC4 is a very recent nostalgia type game because of its final fantasy influences.

BUT, thats all ill say for now. depending on sales, there might be a sequel zine...

Process for my work in this zine

i begun with character examination after picking some characters i really wanted to explore:

- what is the appeal of their character and their canon fashion?

- what is their practical style?

- what are their aesthetical preferences?

all of this is to understand what they would wear, and what fans would like to see them wear (what conveys their appeal from canon). to do this, you have to understand at least a little what the ideas were behind the original game designs.

i split the characters into human "good guys" with tactical fashion and "bad guys" for the demon divas and gave them drag-inspired concept fashion. tactical fashion is something i have always had a soft spot for despite my pacifist political leaning. its probably the goth subaesthetic i lean most into personally. i fit each character with a weapon that fit them. Beryl uses a flamethrower and has an oxygen mask resembling the beastheads, i turned Gryphon into a rifle for V, and Lady uses some light glocks. Beryl wears a bit of casual tactical gear inspired by 2000s action movies, the original Resident Evil live actions, and black lace inspired by the fanwork by KnightofGoetia. V has other gear of his familiar that no doubt is a bit possessed, but powerless humans have no right to complain. Lady is really modernly fashionable, you could probably find her blending in at a festival like that.

For Malphas i wanted to turn her steed into a legless appearance and represent a bit of disability fashion. It's not very practical though. Nevan's design is inspired by classic victorian goth! Her color scheme fits this well to me, its very halloween-y. Trish is back as Cavaliere Angelo this time, but only to relight her rivalry with Lady :P

I really like doing cosplay, and my personal guideline was to design outfits that would be possible to wear. this was a harder line to tackle for the concept fashion but i kept the limb movement possible and i think they look drop dead gorgeous. 

this is somewhat of an AU piece with a bit of storytelling, but its very aesthetical. I dont think i could write their story personally, but i wish V had been alive longer and that the characters could have had more interactions!

next i did reference collection from fashion catalogues for each character. outfits are put together on dummy dolls. i had not defined my interpretation of each characters body so i lined them up clothesless first next to each other on a white background and adjusted their proportions in accordance with each other. in comparison to the source material, i pressed for diversity that brought the characters closer to reality and the audience. i had an idea for what characters i wanted to be shorter and broader than the others, and what parts of their bodies to accentuate. the bodies are of course important for complimentary fit and outfit shape.

then i dressed them up on another layer. this conceptual method is best for digital art. i try out different shapes and colors for the individual pieces until they fit together in a conventual way. everything is tested from shade of highlights in hair to hue of metals on jewelry with skin and skin texture. i begin with the references that i have seen some kind of appeal to and get out of them what i want. no clothes are copied one to one from the reference. composition that is feasable to wear and color undertones and textures loosely defined.

the motivation behind the designs was "something that a cosplayer would wear." so it had to be possible to wear, no matter some difficulty and impracticality, and attractive for someone to become. i think what is attractive to wear as a cosplayer and fashion minded person is something that will impress others: make you become an idealistic archetype and look "impossibly good" in a way that challenges the everyday practical clothes trends.

the archetypes of course were opulent villainesses and private casual soldier. both goth but with different purposes for wear that appeal to two very different kinds of personal style.

to keep it short, my design process was:

Practical

- fitting conditions (skin shown, fat and muscle distribution)

- purpose (practical, for scene/setting/au)

- material should be recognized and understood by viewer.

Aesthetic

- style complimentary to canon.

- culture (concrete real world inspiration or concept from franchise)

- color

- symbols and iconography

- patterns, goes along with texture. (would they wear leopard print? how much? on what piece and in what color?)

critical points:

practical: avoid ooc fit, believability they would wear it and someone could wear it at all.

aesthetic: character recognicability, audience interest

finally the background. 

it had to stand out from the fashion but compliment them, perhaps in a more contrast-like way. it goes with the composition and poses that show and compliment the clothing. there are many balls to juggle here, but i also came up with a story between the characters to integrate.

the concept for the background is composed by references images with an appealing atmosphere. i force it into the shapes that i need for poses such as "sittable on here" and "foreground space here", "visible angle here" and "light from here" to create the scene.

i visualise poses with character well in my mind but i have issues putting them to paper directly so i photograph myself as reference. i usually do this for comics and storyboard where body movement is important and i dont want to waste time composing from scratch. but i am neither an actor or fashion model, so i went back to fashion photography catalogues and found poses for each character close enough to my concepts, that i could cross-reference for the final thing.

this was the most of work i have done for a single fanwork illustration before. its done throughout 4 months and i worked on other smaller creative stuff. during the process, i had the joy of the company of the other artists on this zine.

so yeah i hope you will consider purchasing our work!

i don't plan to publish my zine illustration itself, thats for the buyers to have!

my initial contributor spotlight:

aaand a promo pic i did of trish!