Splinterlands Art Contest Week 271: Jini Guise

This is my entry for the weekly Splinterlands Art Contest found HERE

From the Splinterlands Wiki: https://splinterlands.fandom.com/wiki/Jini_Guise

Jini comes originally from the small Anumün village of Palavan, where superstition and sorcery are the traditional ways of life. She left the village at fourteen however and began traveling around the Splinter and learning different ways from different people. She is very guarded about the details of that period in her life, as if to understand her background would reveal her Gladiatorial secrets. It may indeed, for the rumors say that she spent a few years during this time under the tutelage of an infamous goblin engineer named Porguak Flib. Flib has entirely denied these allegations, probably because it is forbidden for goblin scientists to share engineering secrets with outsiders (especially humans). Jini Guise never looked back at her childhood home of Palavan, but instead traveled at the age of twenty to Praetoria, where she now competes as a Gladiator. Now that Jini is making a name for herself in Moxian combat, forces all over the Splinterlands are attempting to uncover her secret techniques and methods. There are even bets and pools of incredibly high value running as various Splintral players race to learn Jini’s secrets.

Not all the Gladiators in the Moxian arena are strong. With no restrictive rules in place, there are some who use technology, ingenuity and other creative wiles to achieve advantage against their opponents. Jini Guise is one of the most mysterious of these, especially because she has no impressive weapon of her own. She rarely reveals her tricks, but when she is approached by an enemy within striking distance, she becomes a blur of smoke and a cacophony of metal on metal can be heard. When the smoke has cleared, nine times in ten Jini stands victorious over a slashed up enemy, having revealed none of her secrets. It has been observed that some of her tricks are literally up her sleeves. She is well known for the sparkling and loose flowing robes she wears to battle. Audience members from just the right angle can sometimes catch a glimpse of blades and gears beneath the sleeves of Jini’s robes.

Created in Clip Studio Paint Pro on a Surface Pro 4. Here is the time lapse video:

And here is the drawing broken down into individual process steps:

One: Rough Draft

Two: Lineart

Three: Hide the rough layer and make a flat layer of the entire figure

Four: Create separate layers for: hair, cloth, leather, and blades

Five: Shading

Six: More shading. Because I tend to be too timid with my shading, I usually just duplicate the first shading layer I started with and play around with that one. Since they are both multiply layers, it darkens the shading and makes it more dramatic.

Seven: Add some highlights and glow effects.

Eight: Smoke! She fights in the arena with smoke and metal. She's gotta have smoke!

Nine: Add some smoke to the foreground. Also, add my signature. Man, I'm going to have to start signing with 2024 soon.