HOME | DD

Description
"You call this toy an 'Ultima' weapon?"
— Kuja, probably.

I drew this far in advance of Kuja's C90 release, because knowing myself I was going to take a while due to my shit motivation/anxiety/perfectionism. And it did: 3.5 months, 5 do-overs, one dead hard drive, countless tears, and still so many (unsolved?) anatomy issues later—it is DONE! (And I thought 38 hours on this piece was bad...)

[Updates]

2022-01-02 - I edited it a bit (FOR THE LAST TIME LOOOL). Kuja's C90 has been announced, and I am so excited to see him shine again!!! And the 8 month countdown for GL begins!!!!

2022-01-10 - OK LAST EDIT (fixed the giant forehead); I PROMISE I WILL STOP OBSESSING NOW AND JUST POST THIS AS IT IS SOON

[Behind the Scenes - you can skip this lol, I just rant about the process here.]

So I started the drawing in August, and ended up redrawing it too many times. I really love the shading portion of the process, but when I started doing so, the inconsistencies that my brain glossed over came into light. It was very frustrating. I kept seeing mistakes and issues; posted on Discord and asked so many people for advice. Finally, after getting another handful of references and learning to use 3D posers online: after a ton more tweaks, and agonizing over the background (what's new), here we are.

I can't say how many times I've cried over this, almost posted it half-finished, or nearly deleted the file. I was so angry, at my cartoony "style" which is really just a lack of anatomy knowledge, at myself for not being good enough, or for knowing just enough to see something was wrong but not know how to fix it.

I was in the middle of one such slump when suddenly my hard drive suddenly died. Computer wouldn't start, not even to do the Startup Repair, it was really bad. I had luckily saved a PNG on sta.sh, but there were still strips of missing shading, uncentered body parts, and a hideous attempt at abs. I was really just about to call it quits... But that day, I realized how much this drawing meant to me, as a person, as an artist. It had its ups and downs, but I stuck with it anyway. It wasn't perfect, but it is better now. So I went to a repair shop and thankfully the guy rescued the one single file on the drive that I hadn't backed up online lol.

It's still not perfect in my eyes—and the reason I obsess at all in the first place is because he's like the most beautiful character ever. But I'm happy with how it turned out. I couldn't have said that last weekend.

STILL I am open to critique! Let me know what I can do better for next time!

[Special Thanks]

Thanks to altairdelirio and Cebrys on Discord for your very helpful advice, which motivated me to keep going at that very low point. And thanks Unfetteredartist as well for linking justsketch.me, which helped me figure out how to place the rest of the body.

To ShadesOfGreyfell whose streams kept me company when I spent long evenings on this.

And finally thanks to the repair shop guy even though he probably will never see this lol. George, you saved my sanity.

[Disclaimer]

This is fanart for Dissidia: Opera Omnia. I make no profit from this.

Please do not repost! I will post it on other platforms when Kuja's C90 gets released in JP.

Thank you for reading! ✨

Description
"You call this toy an 'Ultima' weapon?"
— Kuja, probably.

I drew this far in advance of Kuja's C90 release, because knowing myself I was going to take a while due to my shit motivation/anxiety/perfectionism. And it did: 3.5 months, 5 do-overs, one dead hard drive, countless tears, and still so many (unsolved?) anatomy issues later—it is DONE! (And I thought 38 hours on this piece was bad...)

[Updates]

2022-01-02 - I edited it a bit (FOR THE LAST TIME LOOOL). Kuja's C90 has been announced, and I am so excited to see him shine again!!! And the 8 month countdown for GL begins!!!!

2022-01-10 - OK LAST EDIT (fixed the giant forehead); I PROMISE I WILL STOP OBSESSING NOW AND JUST POST THIS AS IT IS SOON

[Behind the Scenes - you can skip this lol, I just rant about the process here.]

So I started the drawing in August, and ended up redrawing it too many times. I really love the shading portion of the process, but when I started doing so, the inconsistencies that my brain glossed over came into light. It was very frustrating. I kept seeing mistakes and issues; posted on Discord and asked so many people for advice. Finally, after getting another handful of references and learning to use 3D posers online: after a ton more tweaks, and agonizing over the background (what's new), here we are.

I can't say how many times I've cried over this, almost posted it half-finished, or nearly deleted the file. I was so angry, at my cartoony "style" which is really just a lack of anatomy knowledge, at myself for not being good enough, or for knowing just enough to see something was wrong but not know how to fix it.

I was in the middle of one such slump when suddenly my hard drive suddenly died. Computer wouldn't start, not even to do the Startup Repair, it was really bad. I had luckily saved a PNG on sta.sh, but there were still strips of missing shading, uncentered body parts, and a hideous attempt at abs. I was really just about to call it quits... But that day, I realized how much this drawing meant to me, as a person, as an artist. It had its ups and downs, but I stuck with it anyway. It wasn't perfect, but it is better now. So I went to a repair shop and thankfully the guy rescued the one single file on the drive that I hadn't backed up online lol.

It's still not perfect in my eyes—and the reason I obsess at all in the first place is because he's like the most beautiful character ever. But I'm happy with how it turned out. I couldn't have said that last weekend.

STILL I am open to critique! Let me know what I can do better for next time!

[Special Thanks]

Thanks to altairdelirio and Cebrys on Discord for your very helpful advice, which motivated me to keep going at that very low point. And thanks Unfetteredartist as well for linking justsketch.me, which helped me figure out how to place the rest of the body.

To ShadesOfGreyfell whose streams kept me company when I spent long evenings on this.

And finally thanks to the repair shop guy even though he probably will never see this lol. George, you saved my sanity.

[Disclaimer]

This is fanart for Dissidia: Opera Omnia. I make no profit from this.

Please do not repost! I will post it on other platforms when Kuja's C90 gets released in JP.

Thank you for reading! ✨