face the wind

Hey, remember when I used to do fanart for a fandom that involved alchemy, faux-Earth cultures, and main characters who were like maybe three steps up from cardboard in terms of how much backstory and personality they had in canon? THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW!

Except not, because this is an OC who only ever appeared in one chapter of a fic of mine, so no1 curr. Oh well.

In my defense, I wanted to test out some workflow and thinkery things, and needed a throwaway subject to test it on. I've always been fond of Hylee's design and her character, so here she is again. (Hylee in a nutshell: She's kinda like the Shenhua of Weyard, except she uses battle fans instead of knives.)

~15 hours in Photoshop. Stock photography/textures are from CGtextures.com, lightning brushes are from here. I've also (ab)used brushes from here and here and possibly here although it might've actually come from his first set instead, I can't tell 'cause he didn't label the brushes.