Anime makes me feel...

....Warm and comforted" for the crunchyroll thanks for a million contest~

You know like when an anime character is at the end of their rope, and they go to think in a place that's expansive and either pitch black or white and sparkly? Or that space where magical girls (and boys) go to transform? Those places actually look kinda cozy, don't they? That was the sort of atmosphere I wanted to achieve with this picture

Got lucky again in seeing this contest, immediately having just one idea and then actually being able to draw it! Doesn't look exactly like it did in my head but that's a bit too much of a tall order, I think.

I've gotten better at sideviews!! Finally!!!! Oh my gosh I cannot express how relieved I am that I'm finally figuring out that nose to lips to chin curve, not perfect yet but I do like how the nose looks.

Still cannot figure out how to color strawberry blonde hair for the life of me, but I experimented with a new coloring style for it!

Didn't use pen to outline because I thought it would ruin the soft effect (which it might have) which was still a terrible idea because it muddled my colors some when the mechanical pencil lead bled OTL <--- IS AN IDIOT

Used two tools for this, though! Colored pencils (the cheap kind) and oil pastels!! Dunno if I've ever showed you guys how small my pictures are compared to the sketchbook canvas, but using oil pastels was also a dumb idea even in that my smallest ones were way too big for most of the area I was trying to color, and I didn't have very good control, either LOL. I did at least have a brainspark in coloring extra dark in the middle of the swimsuit and then using a white oil pastel to blend it into the areas too small or close to other things, but I still used colored pencils to fill in some gaps LOL.

I've used colored pencils enough times I'm sure there's nothing to be said about it, I tried to shade the skin with several colors but is it even visible? Probably not.

Although I didn't go in with a super concrete plan on what was going to be colored in what way, I like the special "aura" the magical girls elements have that make them visibly different from the rest of the picture.

(Look I actually drew eyebrows! Whoa!!)

I generally like how the anatomy came out, I absolutely could not seem to make those arms and hands seem any less stiff, but the foot randomly came out good and I like the legs and torso tbh.