*cough* What to say about this...um, it's very different from my usual style; it's my first "abstract" wallpaper, if you will. This isn't how I wanted it to turn out AT ALL, but somehow it did. *sigh* I had this great idea of what I wanted it to look like: light, lilac, gives the impression of a painting...haha! But that's not what happened because I couldn't make it turn out like that! So it ended up being somewhat Gankutsuou-like (I love that anime's style). I'm hoping this isn't too crazy...it will probably give someone seizures or something.

Moving on...I love Sakura Taisen/Wars. I love the game series. XD It's so much fun; I finished all 4 on Dreamcast (imported, in Japanese)...too bad I can't play #5! Anyhoo, Sumire is my least favorite of the characters. *cough*sorry*cough* But I really loved how she looked in this scan, so I decided to use it:
http://www.animepaper.net/gallery/scans/Sakura-Wars/item42180/

The hardest part, as usual, was the extracting/cleaning up of the scan. When I extracted her...well, in the scan she doesn't have the other part of her! The right side is cut off...so I had to draw her other shoulder, arm, part of the kimono...boob. *laugh* I'm rather pleased with how she turned out, though I wish I didn't end up covering it all up so much with the texture. I smudged and repainted more of her...and then I tried working on the background. I extracted several images of violets (since that's her color and what her name means) and then placed them in. Again, unfortunately, you can't really tell where they are anymore! XD I did a lot of work for nothing...but I think the end product looks ok, don't you??

After giving up on making a background by scratch and making it look terrible, I decided to try and find a texture that would look nice. And I did...here:
http://polkadotvanity-stock.deviantart.com/art/Flower-Texture-81234022
Then after more brushwork, color changes, filters...changes of blending and erasing things away, this is what I ended up with. I like how I erased the texture from her skin and just kept it mainly on her kimono etc. It's placed on luminosity to give it the effect you see. Umm...*thinks* I was very unhappy with how this was earlier because I seemed to waste a lot of time on it, but I hope someone likes it...

This took roughly 4-5 hours? I'm not sure...something like that? Well, regardless, I hope someone likes this piece of crap. Thank you. :3