This painting is based on the character 'Estelle' from the game Tales of Vesperia. I didn't want to work with a reference, so I made a loose interpretation of the costume design. Throughout the process, I tried a couple of different things when I was painting this-- kept trying to figure out whether or not to include a background. Ultimately, I decided to keep it as a portrait and use this as an exercise. Painted primarily using Photoshop, with some minor work in Painter 7.

I've been saving the steps for some of my paintings, and thought it would be fun to look back at the progress. If I had to describe a method for my painting process, it would begin as a loose sketch that ends up evolving. Sometimes I have a finished result in mind, but for other pieces-- like this one-- I am experimenting.