Designed and used for a major convention many years ago. We were exploring pirate themes due to the name of the founding people of this particular cluster of anime fandom. We ended up creating a whole fun series of mascots around the notion. This was before the popularity of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean and I had to do a LOT of research since initially I thought the idea was kinda kooky. Was I wrong! At any rate, a female captain was decided upon in the earliest stages of planning and this was my facial rendition of her. I brought pinches of realism to an otherwise "cheesecake" character (not that I don't luvs me some cheesecake) after reading about REAL female pirates (who rock, BTW). We never came up with a name for her. I came up with 'Aurora' . Blonde hair was already decided, but I wanted to go platnum for a more unique and modern look (everyone was goin' white blonde back then). I picked purple eyes because at the time, I hadn't seen a whole lot of purple eyes and I was always fond of the color. Do I need a better reason then that? It's anime!

Top shot: is the line work REVERSED on a photocopy machine at Kinko's *boo!* *hissss* I uh, I am not a fan of that photocopy chain though I don't know what I would have done without them back then. I can no longer figure out how to do "reverse ink" on the newer, more "advanced" models or even severe contrast (which is peeerfect for line art). I don't think they are capable of doing it anyhow. *mutter* *grumble*

Bottom color: Does she look like Carmen San Diego? Well, what's wrong with that? Us kids were obsessed with that game when it first came out. Carmen = cool. *laughs at self* Anyway, first I laid down bases with Pantone Tria & Tombo markers, then added layers and more color with Berol Prismacolor pencils. That description barely does justice to the complete mess I make empting out my entire pencil & marker supply in order to secure just the right colors. Then leaving it to sit and coming back to see what I'd like to tweak. It's always good to take breaks from something that you are intensely absorbed in. Come back and look at it with, what I call, "fresh eyes".

Full pose, found here: [link] + Detail shot: [link]