Redesigning Leo
Perfection is something I struggle with art-wise. I feel like every drawing I make, that I post on social media and to this portfolio, has to be better than the last one, but that turned into “draw better backgrounds, shade better, learn complex lighting, make something you’d want to see in a magazine or hang on your wall.” It put a lot of pressure on me, forced me to focus on the big picture instead of the little details, and made me uncomfortable posting anything that didn’t meet those expectations. It really wore me down, so my goal this year is to change that; to be more flexible and convince myself that not every drawing has to be perfect.
With that said, I’ve had a project on the back of my mind and I never got to it because of that mentality; Leo, a character I only drew once in March of last year, needed a redesign. I drew Lylatt and Lacertae more that once, changing their designs over time, but Leo was the only of the trio who didn’t get that treatment. I had trouble drawing him at angles and I couldn’t dedicate time to the subject without losing my patience. I was tired of my inner perfectionist holding me back, so I began telling myself that if I dedicated enough time to this and accepted the mistakes I made, I could finally move forward and finish what I started.
To put this into perspective, I’ve wanted to redesign him since October, where Leo’s pumpkin had a different ear pattern. That ear pattern carried over to this piece, where the lightning bolt is slightly visible in his left ear and both of them are fuzzier. His whole body is fuzzier, in fact; I made his hair curlier and his body more wolf-like while keeping the aspects of his design I liked. His entire outfit has a punk influence, with his jacket getting longer sleeves and spiked shoulders, his belt being studded with silver, and his pants covering more of his legs while showing the lightning bolts on his ankles. Not to mention, there are more folds in his clothes than before.
On the contrary, I removed his cloud dreadlocks since they were difficult to draw and felt out-of-place with his new fur style. He had cloudy puffs on his wrists as well, but those were removed because they looked better on Lylatt than they did on him. Those were the only things I removed from him, with most of his improvements being smaller, technical changes.
I want to finish this with some notes: If anyone watches Helluva Boss, Leo’s jacket is based on Blitzo’s in episode 7. I used various shots of Loona and Vortex as references when drawing his snout, since I’m not used to drawing wolves unless they’re drawn from the front. I didn’t use as many vector lines and bezier curves, instead using the pen tool and high stabilization (which made line art a lot faster), and there’s more to Leo’s jacket than what’s shown, but it’s covered by his fur.
This drawing will go towards his future appearances, and act as a reference when I design the rest of his family. I have a feeling that I will take this approach when redesigning a character or when designing someone new. This is the first step towards truly embracing my art and becoming less critical of my work, so I can’t wait to continue my artistic journey through 2022!