This wasn’t so grainy in the real world — blame the photography. I couldn’t scan it, so I took a picture, but it was a little dark, so I changed the contrast. Imagine it looks like a normal art cell (particularly the odd light on her face — that doesn’t exist!). Use the second, tiny picture to get a better holistic view.

I used colored pencils and an ink outline on somewhat heavy paper. My only extravagance was the green gel pen that captioned the drawing. I messed it up, too. I can’t write straight for the life of me.

The happy young woman is Osaka, a ditzy character from the anime Azumanga Daioh, and her companion is Menchi, a cat/dog from Excel saga.

I drew this in December 2005 for Louis. It was meant to be desk art — these were his favorite characters from two animes we had recently enjoyed, so I wanted him to have something at work he could look at and smile over. It has traveled with him to two other jobs as of today.

Here are the pics I used for models. Her right eye is messed up — it is so excruciating to make an ink error. I opted not to start all over. :\ Her nose isn’t the same shape, her right arm should not have a muscle, and I didn’t properly curve the top of her head.