Zodiac Series | Taurus!

Taurus is finished, just a few days before her season's done and Gemini starts! She's an earth sign, practical and grounded. She can be a bit stubborn or possessive, but she's definitely reliable, patient, and devoted. Taurus is ruled by Venus, a planet of love and beauty. This translates into Taurus's personality in the way of grounded and practical beauty, such as comfortable but high quality and fashionable clothes, and arts like cooking that combine practicality and passion. It's for these reasons I felt she's be particularly drawn to sports, working on a grounded, healthy, and aesthetic form for herself. I felt like the combination of comfort and practicality that come with high-end sportswear would be a great fit for her! (Of course, I realize not all Tauruses are sporty!)

I had a lot of fun designing her! I myself am not sporty (although I was on cheer team and did Karate for a bit in high school), but I love the look of sportswear, especially when it's incorporated in street fashion. I made quite a few sketches in her early design, but fell in love right away with the look of the twin buns, and I thought they could be a subtle nod to horns of a bull, the symbol for Taurus. I also wanted to give her a big oversized crop hoodie, but it felt a bit too similar to Pisces's design. I'm glad I opted for an open hoodie instead, as it gave me a great chance to practice shading some muscle tone! I usually draw characters with round or flat tummies, and this is the first time I've tried to shade someone a bit more muscular (big buff abs are a different story). It took a long time, but I'm really proud of myself, I think I made it look relatively believable! 

Getting her colours to transfer into CMYK was especially difficult. Oranges, browns, greens, and saturated blues are some of the hardest to convert, and that's basically her entire pallet. When I converted the image the first time, her skin turned a weird orangey-yellow colour. It took a few hours of me fidgeting with the colour balance, getting frustrated and taking a long break, and then a long videochat with my sister guiding me through colour balancing to finally get something that looked right! (Thanks sis! You all should go follow her, she's fantastic!  www.patreon.com/eriennemccray/…  )

Read More: www.patreon.com/posts/37266394
Purchase the Colouring Page here! gum.co/jKlSN

• These pictures will be uploaded on all my social media. If you wish to share it, please visit my accounts rather than re-uploading this image! 
• Patrons have free access to the Colouring Page version! Non-patrons must buy this from my Gumroad store.  Conditions: If you post a coloured version of this artwork online, you must provide credit to me by linking to my Gumroad store ( gum.co/RcEwz ), Patreon page, or personal website (alyssamccrayart.com/ ).