I Heart Girls: Gabby Jeanne and Samus

I collaborated with I Heart Girls.com to create a series of images combining my video game artwork with photos of models taken by Cherie Roberts, and here's one of them!

This was another pose that Cherie came up with, along with beautiful model Gabby Jeanne. I chose to theme this one around Metroid games and include the series heroine, Samus.

The challenge with this piece was having a real girl and illustrated girl side-by-side. The reason why this was tricky is because I wasn't going for contrast as much as with the other pieces, and attractive cartoon girls are known for having exaggerated curves and features. Having these exaggerations next to a real person would only make them look more-so, and probably end up looking wonky. I was really curious as to how this would go and if I could make it work.

In the end I am very happy with how it turned out, and I think both girls successfully look like they are occupying the same space. I also like how natural the scene looks given that it wasn't a pose I had planned out beforehand.

While working on this series I tried to think of lots of unique ways for the characters to interact with the models, so I'm also pleased with how Gabby wearing Samus' helmet turned out.

Here as some progress images, including embarrassingly bad first sketch:

Thank you Cherie and Gabby!