Valentine's Day Contest Entry

Applaud my totally creative, completely original title please.
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No, seriously. Clap.
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Thank you.
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ANYways, this is my entry for theOtaku.com's Valentine's Day contest. It took me FOREVER...

External Image

Tools - pencil, paper, scanner, PS7, Wacom Intuos Graphic tablet.

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Yes, I know I changed the hat, but it looks better that way in this situation! It's artistic liberty. And if you must know, yes, I did make the term "artistic liberty" up just now.

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This one stinking picture took me an entire week to finish. But, as always, I have excuses:

  • It's the first real fanart I've done on the computer.
  • It's the first colored fanart I've done in my life. Ever.
  • Photoshop kept crashing on me.
  • Uh....*insert excuse here*

On the other hand, I've never appreciated my tablet more. Probably because I've never really had to use it before, but that's beside the point.

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On a side rant: Geez, converting to JPEG really screwed up the quality. All the lovely gradients are gone...T_T
[/SideRant]
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Well, let's start from the beginning.

Sketching Spikey (that is his name, right? well, it is now): didn't take very long, and I finally got to show my own style! Except for the hair. I usually don't draw hair like that. But I was going for a more shoujo feel. I'm especially proud of the clothing.

Lineart: I did it all on PS7. It took freaking forever. Probably because it was only my 2nd time doing lineart.

Coloring
: I've vectored things on PS7 twice before, but the problem was I didn't want a cell art look. This led to my spamming of Gaussian Blur and Eraser. And I've never loved my tablet so much. Coloring was really fun, except for the hair. I had no idea how to color it. I hope it looks okay...

After drawing and coloring Spikey, the ribbon, and the box, I got really lazy, so instead of actually drawing, I broke out my wallpapering skills. Everything else is just a combination brushes and filtering, no drawing needed at all. Although getting the roses just right was a pain in the ass. And even now, they're not perfect. Oh well. I promised myself I'm not going to work on it anymore and get my life back.

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Time to end this thing...ah, Please support me in the contest!
Or the cute kitty will kill you in your sleep.

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'til next time~ I'm probably not gonna do any more fanart anytime soon...the effort completely drains a person....

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Quote of the Day - The race for quality has no finish line- so technically, it's more like a death march.

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