Alina Urusov aka ayanimeya is definitely one of the coolest, most talented cats you'll find on DA. If you haven't seen her awesome work yet WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING?!! Cover your keyboard with something drool-proof and check out her gallery... [link]

When I found out that Alina was going to be selling copies of her sketchbook at this years WonderCon i got in touch and asked her to send me one. A few emails and a cashdola transaction later she mentioned the addition of something extra in with the package. It turned out to be this character sketched and signed. Bonus!

By groovy coincidence it's also Janie's 21st birthday today and so I spent the last few days finishing the image to give to her as a framed print prezzie. Janie visited India last year and fell in love with the place. Hopefully this is gonna be another nice reminder of her travels. The background image I've used is the reverse side of some real life Indian writing paper that Janie sent a letter on. Neat huh?

The whole thing took about 15hours - including cleaning up the lines and faffing around with mesh warps in illustrator to try to make the sari design look like its on the cloth. That mesh stuff is tricky dammit. The lighting was the finishing touch with the intention of creating that beautiful crisp, golden afternoon light that i so love.

Many thanks again to Alina for this lovely image and for being a constant inspiration.

Happy Birthday Janie! xxx

EDIT: yeah so I finally got round to re-submitting the change that Alina suggested I make. Subtle but important