Beauty and the beast (fanart)

This one sat unfinished on my hard drive for quite a while, since I'd started painting it not long after starting my Mulan fanart.
It was also my first attempt to use 3D to set up the lighting. I son't know why I like those vertical formats, probably because they allow for pretty dramatic framing, especially here where our characters are under threat. Despite that sense of menace, I didn't want Belle to appear like a damsel in distress. I wanted her decisive and in control. She's the one coming to the rescue. Well of course that's not how it happens in the story, but the goal was to capture the essence of a certain moment in the characters' relationships in an illustration rather than recreate a particular scene.