I'MMA HIJACK YOUR THREAD, FEATHERHEAD
Naw seriously, sounds like an invitation to me~! I'll happily contribute!
😀 Let's see, I'll start back as far as I can up until I can say I was actually proud of what I'd done, and then I'll explain my choices.
(If you dare, head to my
deviantART to download these images at full size. Some of them are pretty enormous!!)
1. This picture is cherished today for reasons I can't exactly explain myself. It was created for the sake of Cheshire Cat's
STRANDED! Summer Swimsuit Spectacular! or as the artists now call it, S407. At the time I was still relatively unheard of, only known by a few friends in the community who were already well-established. But Cheshire came across my work and thought I had potential for his secret summer artist collaboration project, and signed me up. It was a very pleasant surprise and I was quite honored to work alongside such big names. Sadly, this picture never made it into the final project; it was started far too late to be inducted, and was completed only a day before the project's big reveal, so I was able to share it with
deviantART at the very least. Why did I keep working on it even when I had missed my deadline? Well, that's what I can't explain. I guess I just wanted to see it completed. And I was glad I did, as it is now the most popular piece in my gallery. I was proud of my accomplishments with perspective here and I thought I did a very fine color job. It has its errors and uncertain areas, to be sure, but such mistakes were made to be learned from.
2. Before anyone jumps on me and accuses me of being a loli fan, shut the fuck up and give me two seconds to explain why this picture is here. This is the "artist's most cherished art" thread, am I wrong? Well, you're looking at the artist's most cherished character in this picture. The tall and motherly
Kanasta d'Alegría (also featured in the previous image) was not always the naturally maternal woman she is today. Formerly she was a very short-tempered Latina with a smart mouth, due to the pressures she has to deal with every day. Some of you may be into it, but I was never incredibly fond of the "making the bitch smile" theme. I enjoyed the character design, but the character herself needed work. Then I decided one night to experiment with a bit of roleplay in order to better understand Kanasta. The result was nothing like what I expected. Thanks to
RLinksoul's Tsu-maru, the little fairy depicted in this image, the young woman blossomed into the most loving and gentle woman you could ever hope to meet. She still held a bit of the temper when it came to "certain people" in her life, but for Tsu-maru and others, she holds nothing but the utmost love, and for that, I'm happy to say that she is now a better person, I am now a better artist, and she is now my most beloved character.
3. Following the first S4's success, I knew I was going to need to add to my cast. Furthermore, I saw more potential in these characters for something of a story, so I needed to assign more members to the crew in order to tell it. The week after the release of S407, I introduced a then-unnamed punk rocker girl, drawn on a whim, with crazy purple hair and a buttload of attitude. She later became known as
Regina Venus, a reference to the band
Queen and its lead singer Freddie Mercury. I didn't think much of the character until later that year, when I began to find a new appreciation for Classic Rock. I finally had a place for the girl: she represented my love of music, and was immediately filled with an unbridled energy. Taking things a step further, Regina inherited my foot and tickle fetish, allowing her to see things in the same light I do. She has since become my most flexible and one of the most recognizable characters in my cast. The next year, after having decided that Regina would be in a band, I knew she needed band members. Along came
"D", the quiet, soft-spoken keyboardist and sound systems engineer, using her terse and harsh attitude as a mask for her own insecurities. D came with a particular quirk of her own to counter Regina's, in that she can't stand being tickled. Needless to say, people were begging to see her get it. So I was happy to finally give everyone what they wanted, and get these two vastly different characters to interact. They get along in funny ways... But to survive in a band together, you gotta communicate one way or another~ ;P It's a unique image, I think, focusing more on the tickler's feet rather than the 'lee's, which I personally find to be very generous. But it's all in good humor, as well, and it now adorns my mousepad~ dA print quality stuns me!!
4. Soon after D's introduction into my cast, I met a wonderful friend and artist on
deviantART that many of you may know as "
June-sama". June and I talk on a near-daily basis today, after she ran across my dA gallery and discovered Regina, who she became an immediate fan of as soon as she saw her. As a result, she wanted the chance to roleplay with me and get to know exactly what made the rocker tick, so I was pleased to give her a little sample. Over the next few months, though, I grew ever closer to June and looked forward to chatting with her each time I came online. Then one day she gave me some very disheartening news. The poor girl lost her father during his short stay at the hospital. She didn't talk very much after that. She soon left town to attend his funeral, and in her absence, I sought to make her a gift, something that wouldn't mourn her father's passing and instead cheer her up again. She was still as avid a fan of Regina as ever, so I was certain to include her, alongside her own character, Jez Wolfe. Regina and Jez have been as close as peanut butter and jelly ever since they first met, and they're only getting closer. I was so glad that this image was more well-received than I ever could have anticipated, and it was great to show that even my energetic mischievous firecracker of a rocker had a sweeter side to her, as well.
5. If you've been watching me on
deviantART, there's no way you couldn't have seen this coming. This was a picture I worked on for almost two months to have completed in time for the holidays. Unfortunately, another real-life project (that never had any purpose in the end, aaagh) as well as an ornery computer virus prevented me from meeting the Christmas Eve deadline I had planned. I ended up posting it just a few days after New Year's, and reception was still as wonderful as I had hoped. This is without a doubt the largest, most meaningful, and most detailed picture I have ever exerted any of my efforts into, and while it's anything but perfect, it deserves very special mentioning here. There's quite a bit of character interaction going on in this particular piece, between three of my characters as well as three characters belonging to other very close friends of mine.
Rosusonikku's fairy Erusa Aikocho is giving a special gift to my very grateful and happy albino girl,
Lilliana Wiesel, even after she already celebrated a birthday; Kanasta is again sharing a tender moment with her daughter-in-heart Tsu-maru, while enjoying her cocoa in front of the fire; and poor Jez is rather publicly embarrassed by a suddenly blond Regina, dangling mistletoe above the two of them and ready to do something about the whipped cream on her friend's lip. I think one of the things I enjoy the most about this picture is that while it clearly displays my fetish, it's shown in such an innocent fashion that it could be taken as perfectly appropriate and modest to an outside viewer. Furthermore, there's not an ounce of stock imagery here, just as there isn't any in my other pieces; everything was drawn by hand, directly into Photoshop, with no traditional presketch of any kind. And at such a daunting resolution, I still remain impressed to this day. I may have learned a lot during and after the production of this piece, and could probably pull it off even more efficiently a second time. But that won't stop me from ordering a huge print of this come Christmas of 2009, to frame in my room for the holidays.
Hey, you read all of that? Wow, you deserve a reward!! People have been wondering what I've been up to lately since I promised them a ten-page tickle comic that was planned to be uploaded earlier this year, but production is taking longer than planned. That, and they aren't aware that I'm working on another little something besides that comic~ Here's a short tidbit from that, featuring my latest character,
Catherine Venus, and a very young Regina, engaging in what is probably the moment Regina gained her fetish.
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k118/bluechaos89/cathygigipg02wip.gif
Historic? I hope I won't be the only one who thinks so!!
