Fan Art Collab with @suezoe #4: Ai no Kusabi (Part 2)

Around three days ago, I posted the first part of my fourth fan art collaboration with @suezoe. It was Iason with a Riki doll from Ai no Kusabi. Sue made the main character, and I drew the doll last time, but this time we did the opposite. I was in charge of drawing the main subject, who is Riki, and she drew adorable chibi versions of Iason all over Riki.

If I'm not mistaken, the reference we used for this fan art was from the same magazine Sue introduced last time. This BL story is one of her favorites, so I'm delighted to work on it with her.

I personally like the art style of the original artist, so I thought it would be awesome to create our own version of it. For now, allow me to show you how I made Riki.

Using the Medibang Paint app, I created an outline of how Riki would look. He's crossing his arms from the reference photo we used. (Please check out @suezoe's post later on for the source since I only took a screenshot of it from our direct messages. haha)

Then, I created the art line. Riki is the uke or the bottom in the BL pairing. His original design is already pretty, but I made him more feminine in this artwork, I suppose? haha I guess one of the reasons why I love drawing the uke is because I have the tendency to make the characters in my fan art pretty. hahaha It happened a lot, even when I painted Jiraiya from Naruto, he turned out to be pretty. XD

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I then added the base color. He has such fair skin. You may have noticed that the tank top he's wearing looks like it's floating. The reason for that is for Sue to insert one of the chibis she's going to draw around him. :)

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The next step I did was adding some highlights and shadows. His design is so simple, so I tried to add more depth to it.

I finalized the drawing and added my signature beside it. After I was done, I sent the MDP file to Sue, as well as the final exported output, so she could continue and add her part.

The reference only had a white background, so I asked her to do the background as well.

When she sent me the final drawing yesterday, she asked what I thought of the background. I told her I actually love it because it's giving Riki, who's initially gloomy, a mellow, adorable vibe. It also fits the chibi Iason she made.

If I remember correctly, the vibe of this anime is far from sweet, so it's nice to give it a different vibe. :)

So yeah, this is the final part of our fourth collaboration. We already have another pair of anime characters to draw for the next collaboration, and I'm truly excited for it.

As usual, 50% of this post is for mi amiga @suezoe! <3 Please look forward to checking out her post about the really cute Iason chibi and background addition.

Before I end this post, let me share this GIF version of my part for this collaboration. It's always so fun to watch a GIF version of an art process. hihi

I'll end it here for now. Thanks for checking out this post, and see you around! (^^,)/

PS: Check out our previous collaborations!

Dr. Stone X Jojo's Bizarre Adventures
Junjou Romantica
Gravitation
Ai no Kusabi Part 1