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The Goddess of All That Flows
Published: 2011-06-05 05:31:35 +0000 UTC; Views: 7714; Favourites: 440; Downloads: 54
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Description
Benzaiten, Goddess of Everything that Flows: Water, Words, Music; Japanese equivalent of the Hindu Goddess Saraswati.For The Mythology Pageant .
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Honestly, I'm not 100% happy with this one. But I've been working on her for about a month now, and I feel I need to let her go or I shall never finish her.
The top left (our left) portion of her headdress may look a bit odd, but that's only because the colors were selected specifically to match TMP's layout colors (which is, by the way, a nice deep brown.) I might make a regular pagecolor version soon.
I was inspired to create an Eastern-style doll with flowing robes after reading Empress Orchid by Anchee Min. I was enchanted by the book's descriptions of beautiful robes brought alive with meticulous embroidery and studded with jewels. Apparently, I failed at recreating the embroidery and jewels. I tried really hard but nothing seemed to work out.
Maybe next time.Other inspirations include about a million photos of geisha, Japanese woodcut paintings, and stuff I saw on my recent vacation. Many thanks also to the people at Glam! for the CC.
She came really close to killing me, this one. I've barely slept for four days both because of her and the night shift at work. So I hope you enjoy her! ^^
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Comments: 44
I know right? Blue is my favorite color. :>
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My pleasure. You're always very welcome!
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So glad you think she's amazah!
*does amazah dance*
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WOAH. That dance is quite amazah, as well O:
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That's why it's called the "amazah dance".
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Thanks! I'm so glad you like her. ^^
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Thank you! I'm glad you like her. :]
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Very nice! I wish I knew either Japanese or Chinese fluently for my projects...the Chinese teacher at the school where I work has helped me on a couple of art and writing projects. [link]
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Thanks! ^^
That's a really nice piece. I'm not fluent in Japanese either (or, more accurately, I don't speak it at all). I just googled the characters and roughly copied them out. I'm sure somewhere out there, some Japanese dude is cringing at my kanji. xD
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Mrs. Yuan really liked that piece, and I gave her a copy for her classroom. She was really amused that there was a Chinese cartoon character like Amy, but she couldn't figure out her wild hairstyle...
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her face is very beautiful and unique. i'm glad she didn't kill you else i wouldn't get to see her!
the colours, wow!
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Thank you so much! ^^ I think everything I've ever made has killed me little inside.
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Very Interesting ! I'll have to do a GIS on her. I like anything from comparative folklore, mythology or religion.
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Thanks so much! I'm glad you like her. :] And, GIS?
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Google Internet Search.
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Congrats to your DD. This really deserved it.
V is pretty awesome. loved reading it
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Thanks! I'm so glad you like her. ^^
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Congrats to your DD! 
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Saw the WIP on Glam, but I never saw the finished product. Pretty amazing.
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Thank you! ^^ So glad you like her.
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Fantastic entry, I love the colour choices =3
(And Empress Orchid is one of my favourite books 
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Thanks so much! I'm glad you like!
(Oh! I know, it's amazing! Have you read the sequel, the Last Empress and is it any good? I'm thinking of getting it this weekend.
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You're welcome
And yes I have, it's far more political but still interesting.
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I am always so happy to see more art from you because they never seem like just a doll, more like illustrations. You also manage to retain your style, always. Cause while the portrait is very reminiscent of those japanese woodcuts, the whole still has a ladyhazy look to it. the button-ish nose and those lips. the skin palette and the attention to the hands. I recently spent 1 1/2 hours trying to pixel the hands on one of my dolls. maddening!
Now, do you have a No-CC-please-because-I-am-never-looking-at-this-again policy or can I have a go at it? Hopefully it is useful for future works even if you don't adjust this specific one.
I do love the portrait, especially the cherry blossoms and the lineart but I have to say that the dithering is a bit off-putting. It works well for the background and the shading of the robes but not so much for the face. I think this is because the contrast in the robes and bg arent as high as the contrast you've put within the face. The rouge is also placed kind of randomly. The rouge needed only one colour (the lightest pink because the darker pink contrasts too much with the pale skin), less dithering and a more horizontal tear-drop shape with a dithered tip. There'd still be that pop of red but not as glaring. I also prefer the eyes on the WIP when the red was more of an eyeliner than an eyeshadow. Finer aa-ing of the WIP eyes and it would have been just right. That or just block the whole eye lid with the lightest pink to make it more woodcut-y.
I know I sound like an aa-nazi right now but I'm curious why you don't use anti-aliasing more often. It's on the strings of the instrument so I know you can do it. I'm not saying it is the ONLY way to pixel but it could have been very useful for example on the eyebrows (of both portrait and full-body) or edges in general. A bit of aa-ing using the two lightest pinks could have smoothed out those eyebrows and made them stick out less against the very pale skin.
I really like what you did with most of the kimono. Right amount of folds, not exaggerated and not too much, as seems to be the norm in dolling. I am guilty of this too often XP. The only problem, and you've spotted it too, is the jewels. they look like marbles that just kind of fell on her lap and are lying there, about to slip when she stands. They're too big and are too few. You might have been trying to do too much here because pattern + jewels = 2 different textures. That said, I love the swirls on the kimono. Very well done. The blue is really bright, almost too bright but the muted portrait compensates so it works well actually.
Now that I've written a novel, I'd just like to say good luck on the pageant! I think you'll go far with this one
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Thanks so much! I'm happy to hear that as I always go for a not-quite-just-a-pixel-thing look. ^^
And thank you so much, too, for the CC! Just because I never want to look at something again doesn't mean I don't want to know its strengths and weaknesses. It's something I made, after all and, you're right, the CC will come in handy with the next doll.
I just tried changing the rouge color to the single light pink, as you suggested and I must admit it looks less severe that way. Colors look funny in my head when I look at something too long, it seems.
As for the AA, the truth is there used to be AA at some point, at some version of this. I tend to erase things and start over fresh when I'm not completely happy with something. And it seems that in my hurry to get this doll done, I forgot (or ignored, more like. Lazy bones. ._.) to make the extra effort. Next time, I'll go over all the lines to make sure I don't miss anything.
Those jewels are supposed to be water droplets. I was supposed to do a waterfall as a partial background and they were supposed to have sprayed off the waterfall and landed on her lap, but ended up taking way too much time on the dolls so I suppose it's my fault that this isn't more obvious.
Again, I'm glad that you like her and that you took time to leave me very thorough critique. It's all much appreciated
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She's gorgeous... I really love the palettes of the kimonos, and the texture you gave the blue one...
Anyway, wonderful work ! ^^
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Thanks so much! Glad you like.
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