Sept-Amber : A Warm Flickering Flame

I can't help but laugh with pride and joy every time I look at this cutie. This is by far my favorite especially because it was totally unexpected. In my mind this is going to be very challenging because I have no idea how to turn a flame into a character without being too literal and drawing an obvious flame? Well, it was easy to come to this end read below my art journey hahaha

oh by the way this is still under the sept-amber drawing prompts week 2 I believe and is not a character design challenge. So, we are looking at my initial sketch of the prompt " a warm flickering flame". The first draft is a little different from the final result because here I am shaping an alcohol lamp kind of character. a simple head that is shaped like the flame a cute face a collar to mimic that receptacle of an alcohol flame together with the body of the character which is the base of the flame. The legs are random sticks with rubber pads what was I thinking.

After a few minutes tweaking the design I had come to this image. As much as I love the cuteness and roundness of the first draft I had to edit it so that the character becomes coherent with my two previous characters. I need to keep those swirly flowy line drawings but I do not want to add hair to this character and would want those lines to be intentional rather than random and so I put those lines in the collar mainly. I am happy how the collar turned out and obviously echoing the said swirly lines. The next challenge then would be the flame. I keep asking myself if this simple tapering single flame shape would be enough to get the vibe or do I need to add small particles of flame above it. That is the extra effort one must put into their work we should always edit sometimes less is appropriate and right. I think I am good here. Still questioning myself though is this giving the flickering flame? That is the time I revised the chin and cheeks. The chin connects to the head as if it were a flame coming from the collar below and I think it worked. I am so glad that came to my mind and the cheeks I made them more pronounced and those small upturned bits are like flames in a way.

I am keeping the same color palette from my previous characters so everyone has that autumn sept-amber vibe. I was trying a vibrant yellow for the flame head or maybe blue but chose this soft peachy super light orange then the blue is still there but I chose the shade that looks like a patina on a metal but lighter. For the body I do not need any other vibrant colors but something neutral that could represent metal. So this soft grey and charcoal black are my safe bet.