Boy is there ever a story behind this one So, for the longest while I've been known to run various streams, for art, anime, music and whatnot. After a long-ass time of me needling my friend http://askdacast.tumblr.com/ about various mecha shows (especially since her only experience up to that point was Gundam Seed, aka the worst mecha show ever created in the history of anime, fuck anyone dumb enough to say otherwise) and her constantly saying nawww that wasn't her thing, I finally got to her with Transformers Prime several months ago, and it was every bit the hit I hoped. 8D One thing lead to another, and over the course of several months I managed to get her into more mecha, including me beating the shit out of SEED units in SRW J on stream and demonstrating the numerous other super badasses from it. Basically we eventually ended up going through some of the shows that literally are what set me on the road to where I am in art and writing today, the series and themes and ideas which basically MADE me. WHere I came from, basically. Chief among these was SRW OG and more recently GURREN LAGANN (of course) which she actually went and watched on her own and then we spent two days fangasming over. Me for the return to my roots, and her, because well GURREN GODDAMN LAGANN and then we watched the movies and the world was so very different afterwards ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL Seriously I rewatched those a dozen times and the feels got me everytime. BUT ANYWAY The point is since I shared my origin stuff with her, she decided to do the same which is why in exchange for me showing her GaoGaiGar later I let her talk me into joining her for Pretty Cure episodes. On the one hand, I'm dying On the other SWEET CHRIST I HAVE NOT SEEN AN ANIMATION BUDGET HEMMORHAGE FUNDING LIKE THAT SINCE FUKKEN UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS LIKE JESUS CHRIST TOEI HOW ARE YOU THIS GOOD Not only that, but the designs are actually surprisingly good. Not perfect, cuz I mean I highly doubt my tastes match too well with it, but still, I can appreciate that much detail and all the frills and stuff THE POINT IS Thanks to her dragging me through some of her fave designs as well and lamenting the terrible characters they were attached to, she FINALLY let me get my claws into her OC Alyss to do the long awaited redesign I'd been aching to do since well ever, really, since her character was previously only done in Walfas, which aside from me just hating that program and 'artstyle' in general, is also frankly absolute rubbish for anything even approaching a proper/good design since it's all just a bunch of low-detail chibis, meaning there's no use of body proportions, posing and anything else you can use to make a character design really pop, as it were. (I'M STILL AFTER YOU http://ask-sethb1.tumblr.com/ DON'T THINK I'VE FORGOTTEN YOU AND THAT SHRINE BOY OUTFIT. YOU'RE GETTING AN UPDATE SOONER OR LATER! AND MAYBE YOU TOO http://brollidiamondback.tumblr.com/ ) Not to mention I finally got to give her that radical missile launcher/grenadier/mini-ICBM cross weapon I'd been sitting on for years. SIGNATURE WEAPONS ARE IMPORTANT Either way I had an ABSOLUTE BLAST designing this (pun intended). Everything from the pose, to the floaty clothing, the frills (oh damn the frills) the color, the shadows, the awesome hat, and then the lighting... FANTASTIC I enjoyed the hell out of getting a chance to work on another super detailed piece like this, and I hope the rest of you enjoy it too! ...and maybe not go blind from all the red BUT IT WAS WORTH ITTTTTTTTTT