Princess Nina Windia, the winged deuteragonist of Breath of Fire IV and for me, one of the most memorable gals of PS1 gaming. Feathered wings aren’t the only feature setting her apart. Her skills in wind and restoration magic, personality of immense kindness (sometimes even down to a fault,) and adorable naivety make her much more than just another fantasy / gaming princess.
Painting her was a work of nostalgia for me, I gave her a few extra years compared to her in-game portrayal, and chose her pose to be of her favourite pastime: flying. I went for a fairy tale mood, a slightly realistic style, but also tried to keep her adorable features intact. Makes me wonder how a Capcom produced remake could turn out, but given the current cultural zeitgiest, it’s better the series remains resting. Now…why does she dislike broccoli so much?
Process
I find my painting pipeline a strength in its own right. In the advent of AI being able to make the hardest parts of paintings a no factor, that being composition and lighting set up, I keep to my archaic ways. I don’t even use 3D moddeling for composition and body posing, nor still shots or photos. Most comes from imagination, the poses, perspective, lighting, expressions, colour matching, and when painting my own characters, their designs too. I do certianly use references for details, designs or subject matter I haven’t painted yet.
Therefore, I’ve added a small recap of the painting process, from as little as blobs to block out the scene, following with the scaffolding of line work, down to the full rendering, colour grading and gamma corrections. I’ll be adding this section for every future piece of work I shall do, and I’ll probably start listing the references too.
