Kula Diamond- Fan Art

Here's yet another fully fnished piece from my regular Picarto live stream sessions, this time featuring none other than one of my favorite King of Fighters characters, the ice princess herself, Kula Diamond!

While I don't exactly fashion myself as a "fanart" artist to any real degree, I'd be an outright liar if I didn't admit that there are plenty of characters in pop-culture that I draw quite often, but usually in private. This was just one of the few little numbers that (once I began sketching) I simply couldn't resist finishing, let alone sharing with everyone.

Initially I thought of doing Kula up in her old KOF duds from previous years, but there's something about her current design that jives with me. If I'm being honest though, as much as I enjoyed figuring out all the minutia of her hems and fabric cuts, it was a little tedious at points to render. Oddly enough, this is also probably one of my better examples of organically building out a picture. When I started, there was only an idea of what i wanted Kula's pose to be (which was to pretty much evoke Elsa from Frozen) and essentially nothing else. I had no idea of what I wanted the background to be, what I imagined the colors would be, or how the finished product would emerge. Even her magnificent hair was ultimately an experiment.

All told, I'm somewhat satisfied with the results, although I would never recommend anyone do this sort of image building, especially during a live stream. I spent a solid twenty minutes of explaining my process to my viewers, simply because I was at a loss at where to take the damn thing after I had Kula fully colored. After I couldn't stall any longer, I had to admit that I didn't know where I was going with the background, and dropped the biggest pro-tip I think I could give to all aspiring artists.

Always go in with a plan, and have a good exit strategy.

As for materials used, there is a combination of Copic markers, Prismacolor markers, and Pigment pens used for the colors. The inks were done using a combination of Micron and Faber pens, all on a 9 x 12 in. Bristol board.