So after three or so weeks, it's finally finished. ::sighs, flops over::

This is Shirayuki, one of my own Inuyasha fan characters. This is my own representation of Sesshoumaru's mother. She's a bit different here from "Tsukiakari," a previous doodle I did of her named "moonlight." I like the name Shirayuki better, it starts with an 'S' like Sesshoumaru does, and the doodle works better, is more elegant. Shirayuki, btw, means "white snow," for those who are curious.

Decided to give her red-themed clothes with gold contrasts, since blue struck me as too pale and not regal enough for her, and white would've left this piece looking very very empty. She's supposed to be standing in a watergarden of sorts, filled with fog, hence all the white. I rather like how it came out. The background is hand-painted (I didn't sketch it), and I didn't do as much blending to the colors so they look more painty too. The lineart is digital, using the line tool over a sketch I did on cardstock. So unlike the picture of Meinu that I did a while back for *messa-chan, this pic isn't entirely digital. Just mostly so.

I also used an effect borrowed from * messa, from her "River of Time" piece of Link from Ocarina of Time. I duplicated the flattened Shirayuki layers and then gaussian blurred them and set them to a 40% opacity to soften Shirayuki herself. Looks nice, and amplifies the fog effect.

The grass was done with one of the default "fur" brushes from PSP7. The fog was done with a "scratch" brush I made by drawing scratchy lines on paper and smudging them, then scanning it. The flower accents on Shirayuki's outer kimono and obi were brushes made from a flower print in an anime game picture I found online (and saved just to make those brushes). Font is Dael Calligraphy and Times New Roman (for the copyright).

TD: mechanical pencil on cardstock, PSP7 and Wacom tablet. Approximately 7 hours work (especially considering my computer slowed down again toward the end. I really need to get more memory for poor Oni).

Shirayuki and art © A.Holyoak (me)
Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi