Under the Ice Queen's Gaze

Look!!! Look, I did it!!! This is my first ever (proper) piece of original Final Fantasy art. So I am posting it straight away, cos I am so happy! If you haven't played Final Fantasy X, the character is called Shiva. If you have, I hope you can tell this from the picture.

Its drawn in biro, which I wasn't sure I would be able to do for an original pic, because of the detail I try to incorporate. But, I found some slightly blurry screenshots, and spent this afternoon playing the game to get the details sorted in my head. There are some inconsistencies, but that can't be helped. Why does this have to be the one game where you can't actually pause it during battle?!

I don't know where the idea from this came from, but I wanted to draw Shiva, and somewhere my brain suggested that her staring at a snow pixie would be a good idea. So, I put it on paper while the image was still in my head.

Only thing... because I wasn't copying this, I had to outline in pencil first, so I knew where all the limbs and bits and pieces would go. And pencil screws up the ink when you try to go over it... so the texture isn't as I'd like it to be, but it could be worse. Maybe when I have a lot more practice at this, I could ditch the carbon-stick altogether, but I'm not at that stage yet.

It isn't perfect, there are errors... but for a first attempt, I quite like this.

The snow fairy thing is supposed to be glowing, so I lightened it a little in Photoshop, but otherwise this sketch is unaltered.

I hope you guys like this, especially those of you waiting for original stuff from me. I enjoyed doing this a lot, so there will certainly be more.

Time: Dammit, forgot to check the clock. I started sketching last night, and have spent all day working on the details, so... quite a long time.

Tool: Pencil, then biro, then a smidgen of PS alteration.

Shiva is the property of other people.

And if you have read this far, I applaud you! I'm excited, I had lots to say, and I felt like waffling!