Ahegao

Another portrait of Aftyn Rose, this time focused on her “ahegao” face. It’s something she does often, but I have barely tried to represent. I’m not entirely sure what she’s expressing when she does it. For me, it sits at the intersection of silly, playful, and sexy that Aftyn herself exemplifies.

The face is referenced from one of her kitten videos; the rest is from imagination. The process of getting where I got was interesting. Initially I drew a full-body pose from the widescreen reference image, including the 3dio microphone. I decided to remove the microphone, which she was licking, to improve the clarity of the expression. I tried to figure out what would be happening behind it and went through several sketches looking for a believable image. Some of those attempts were better than others. I even used my new pose dummy to get a feel for the anatomy and perspective. But I couldn’t settle on any of them. Then it came to me overnight: why was I trying to show the whole body? I decided to reframe the sketch to focus on her face and, um, her chest.

I had intended to make this a painted work. The monochrome version was intended to be just a sketch, a guideline, but my pen ran away with me! I kept elaborating on the shading and detail until it started to feel complete, and by then it was too late. I may revisit it later on — I have some ideas about lighting that would be fun to explore — but this is done for now. I’m happy with the work. The very believable details in the face makes the rest more credible.