---EDIT---
It was kinda bothering me I didn't show the reference image, especially since several people thought I drew this all by myself and some find it kinda strange I didn't add it to the description, so... here it is (:

---> reference of Zack<---

I'll be drawing a very different background, so it's still gonna be my own!

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My computer was dead for a while so I couldn't scan my drawings, but now I'm back again yay!

I'm also working on multiple drawings at the same time (commissions, collabs) so that's the reason why I don't upload my drawings as fast as usual.

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By the way, what do you guys think about a new contest somewhere in August? If I'm right all my commissions will be done by then so I'll have plenty of time!

Anyway

I decided to make this kinda tutorial-ish. At each Work In Progress I'll explain what exactly I've done.
So here is WIP 2 - skintones.

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Skintones
As the title says I drew the skin. It was really hard to capture the dark parts, since the lighting of the reference image is quite odd (coming from the right). Meaning the part that has so be recognizable had to to be shaded very dark, which is Zack's face.

Arms
For the arms I used a B mechanical pencil for the dark parts (right under the armor) and 2H + H mechanical pencil for the light parts.
As for the muscles (.......), I shaded them with an H and HB mech pencil. Smudged/blended the areas a little with a tortillion so the lines wouldn't look too strong.

Hair
The hair of this character is black, but because of the bright lights on the right and the dark shadows on the left, it looks kinda grey-ish. For the darkest parts I used a 3B mech pencil, for the midtones B. I blended these to so you'll get the smooth look.
With 2B I added very thin lines so the hair will be more visible. And that's it!


As for the background...
Thanks for the many ideas for the background! I'm still thinking about the following ideas you've given me:

Midgar

A cliff Zack's standing on

The lifestream <--- my favourite so far

Cloudy background with angel wings/feathers

Dark background like my Tifa drawing

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H happens to be my favourite pencil to work with. A lot of artists don't like it, but I do!

This probably will be the last Final Fantasy drawing for a while. You can probably image I'll be doing my best to make this look as good as possible.

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approx 8 hours of work so far

Wanna see the previous WIP?
WIP 1 - lineart


_{Final Fantasy: Crisis Core is copyrighted to Square Enix}