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Hello everyone,
How are you? Are you doing well? I sure hope that you are! It's been a little while, but thankfully not as long as my previous postings, right? Seriously though, I'm glad to be back, and hopefully soon I'll have a series of completed, painted works to present; starting with this image! So let's see....where to begin? Well, with the holidays approaching, I thought that I'd take a short break with commissions, (though I hope to commence with those requests very soon! ) and focus on gifts for those nearest and dearest to me. I wish I could offer more, but with limited funds, I always hope that these tokens will suffice in some small way at least. Here's hoping anyway.... ><
Anyhow, though I hope to have this completed as a painted image, this is a line art version of a piece that I had wanted to do for the wonderfully kind and considerate . I have spoken of my dear friend many times previously, so I find myself at a loss on what more I can say about how supportive and encouraging she is. So, I hoped that this piece would speak for me, as it has been one that I had wanted to do for her, for some time now.
To speak briefly on her behalf, however, I wanted to say again that and I have been friends here on Deviantart for a number of years now. Throughout this time, I have been constantly amazed at not ONLY how sweet she is, but also by how much she is able to see in EACH and every deviation that I post, whether it's a work in progress, or a completely polished deviation! She would read all of my commentaries, noticing the efforts, details and themes that I would try to incorporate in my work, and without fail, she would root me on, both with my work and in my life endeavors. And truth be told, I did indeed find her words encouraging, so much so that I wanted to befriend her even outside of Deviantart; hence the reason why we've spoken through email and notes as well. ^_^ If that wasn't enough, she was even kind enough to share a number of doujinshi titles with me, and she would also think of me during both the holidays and my birthday as seen by the number of gifts that she's given me: ! Though I find that I often get backlogged on replying to both emails and messages here on Deviantart, I wanted to say that I often think fondly of (as I do for many of you as well) and I wanted to show my appreciation with this work.
Though the piece is simple in concept, I wanted to depict the Yu-Gi-Oh character Anzu for , a character that the two of us admire, which I'm sure is quite evident for those who know us best In addition, however, I know that is quite fond of the popular Professor Layton games on the Nintendo DS. Though I have yet to play the games myself, and in truth know nothing about the series, I wanted to somehow incoporate it in my image of Anzu, so I came up with the idea of having her holding a cute Professor Layton plush doll. I of course looked at Professor Layton's design when depicting the doll, but I also noticed that these plushes exist in real life! So viewing the actual doll also proved useful in rendering it, as I hope it will when I paint the finished piece.
Though I've depicted Anzu time and time again, I always have the tendency to want to render her like my beloved Teana, the previous incarnation of this canon character, that I partially imagined myself. I suppose that is why I drew Anzu looking a bit more maturely, though I often do so with any anime character I depict. Still, since this IS Anzu and not Teana, I made the effort to stay try to her design, hence her shorter hair, and larger eyes. I also noticed that I had never depicted her wearing her Duelist Kingdom outfit, so I thought that doing so would be a nice change of pace.
I don't know if this image can EVER truly begin to repay all that has done for and given me, but I hope that it will be a nice gesture, if nothing else. :forgvieme: I'll look forward to completing and posting the painted version as soon as I possibly can (as well as a few other works!) so please be on the look out! I wish you ALL the happiest of holidays and I thank each of you as well, for the support that you've given me! And once more, I want you to know that I truly TRULY appreciate how incredibly awesome that you have been for all of these years! You're a true friend, and I look forward to staying in touch in the future also! Best wishes to you; to all of you! Until next time then!
Lots of Love,
Yamigirl21