Violet Ash

<sub>[EDIT 20-10-12: Linked a journal entry with thanks for the very unexpected DD on this. <3 [link] ]

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[Note: 7MBs is quite ridiculous for one pic, but I always upload at actual-res, so yeah ... Thus, download only if you wanna wallpaper with this and your desktop is bigger than 1600x900 pixels wide (fullview size), or if you like details and have internet to burn. ^^]</sub>

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_{[EDIT: I guess dA doesn't like really big resolutions. =s I'm having similar problems with grainy fullview as with the last Koishi picture. Drat ...
For those of you who couldn't read the poem from the image, it is:]}

But if on barren fields we meet again,
Would we, like Summer dew, together cling
Or, scorched anew by age-old quarrels, clash?
If harvest we the warmth that yet remains,
Brave Winter's tempest wrath to greet the Spring;
Would love re-bloom, or fade to violet ash?

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I've been working on this for so long that I can't tell whether it looks good or not anymore. Usually a well-done piece should hit you with a good impression at first glance ... this one is opposite, to me looks lame at first but better if I stare at it longer, which is slightly maddening since I dunno which to trust more. It also looks better at 1920 pixels width than 1280 - sad because most people will be viewing lower res ... But enough with regrets, time to set this free and move on, ey?

To Touhou fans: no, this was not intentionally an obligatory post-TH13-announcement "Bring back Mima! QQ" picture. My wanting to draw her and Ten Desires being announced just happened to coincide weirdly. I've made this piece to be a bit of an ironic reply to the question of whether she'll ever return. I've played with history too. No, Mima hasn't been lurking inside the Hakurei Shrine all this time. After Mystic Square, she vanished in self-imposed exile, without a word, along with the other PC-98 characters. And between games, Reimu's been searching for her all this time ...

What if you were to stumble upon your old flame after all these years? Would all your bottled feelings from a bygone age resurface? After all this time has past, and the distance separating you, can things go back to some semblance of what once was, or have you both moved too far apart, and can never be one again?

[Or more literally ... perhaps Mima's been dead for so long that ZUN can't do artistic justice to her character with a revival? Better maybe just to let her rest in canon and leave it up to fanon to play with her? Food for thought. I will laugh so hard if, after saying this, it turns out she DOES make it into TH13. 8D]

That poem there ... again could've been part of a Sonnet, Petrarchan this time, but I don't have as many strong ideas for the other stanzas so I've just given the last six lines post-turn.

INFLUENCES:

~pickychicken's [link] . Funniest take on these two I've found to date, not to mention one of the very few pics putting them together as romantic interests.

~logos1959's ([link]) Koishis, making me want to do Mima with the same (literal and thematic) darkness. Also for having consecutively cool Mima avatars that first made me want to go and look the character up, before I knew who she was, or got addicted to her theme music.

*arufa's [link] and its gorgeous twilit sky. I ended up going in a different direction with the storm, but initially my skyline was to be very bright, but never as pretty.

*KurkoBoltsi's [link] has to be the most baddass Mima in existence. Really inspired me to try my own. It's so detailed and Ghibli-esque that it makes me want to cry with joy, imagining her as lead villain in a Miyazaki epic…

Strangely enough I had the image of Miyazaki's Howl and Sophie when doing my own picture, so maybe this had a lot to do with it.

... Or even moreso, that feeling probably came from THIS. Beautiful. Thing: [link] *messa!

Also, Reincarnation [link] sounds uncannily like [link] the theme from Laputa. ^^ Oh, Hisaishi Joe! <3 Still, I prefer Complete Darkness [link] more, it's one song I always play on piano when bored or in need of comfort, heheh, and being Mima's theme in the game she was the final boss in, it's what I most associate with her.

Once again, sorry for the long description!

Reimu Hakurei, and Mima the friendly ghost belong to Team Shanghai Alice (ZUN).
Picture, poem and character redesign tweaks (Mima) by me, done on Photoshop Elements 3 with Wacom Bamboo.