Kushana - Nausicaä

The third and most difficult piece to nail down in this series thus far: Kushana!

For the first time, I made a minor request in advance regarding an oblique reference to the original Wind Rider outfit page. (For the Nausicaä nerds among us: Maybe you can spot it in the 1st prelim?) This request also drove home why I'm not an artist, because it clearly felt out of place immediately upon seeing the prelim. Moreover, while I really, really liked Pbbeta's choice to heavily feature Kushana's battle flag, some other parts just didn't feel entirely right to me.

I felt it really important to do justice to arguably the most important character of the series other than Nausicaä, so I sent back by far the most extensive notes thus far. Thankfully Pbbeta was very open to these!

She sent along a reworked version which felt much improved, but more importantly also included an alternate sketch centered around an idea she'd been sitting on to visually distinguish the main cast by placing them more at the center of the page/enlarging them.

I was quite smitten by this idea, and since the prior feedback had already been incorporated into this prelim, it's largely the same as the end result. Quite happy we were, as far as I'm concerned, able to capture such a difficult character in the end!

A4

P.S. I'm secretly a bit proud I found a way to alter the oblique reference for the final piece to a degree where the reference still makes sense for those in the know, but is also just a more fun line in general that doesn't feel wildly out of place.

I also learned to weigh any other text suggestions I make carefully, because my slap-dash battle flag one ended up making it into the final piece verbatim...