Chrno Crusade 'till Death do us Apart

EDIT:

OKEY...I realized that something *Could* be improved...so I made this version...was designed for personal use, so I don't have all the resolutions...download if you like it...^^

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii120/shawnhao/Wall36-3-2.jpg

Phew...finally finished....^^

I was browsing through the scans section for stuff to work with and came across this scan of Rosette from Chrono Crusade:

http://www.animepaper.net/gallery/scans/Chrno-Crusade/item67252/

I immediately fell in love with the scan, the character, and especially the expression on her face...But the problem was that the quality of the scan was very poor, and worse still, there were those HUGE letters across the entire image, so I had no choice but to vector her out myself (which I don't usually do...)...

Since I love the scan a LOT, so I decided to keep as much original details as possible...when I do vectors, I rarely go above lvl 9 posterization, but I went all the way to lvl 17 for this scan, so this scan took about 3 times more than what I would usually spend on a vector of the same size...=]

I employed the 25-step gradual fade (I made that term up^^) for most of the transitions to make them as natural and gradual as possible (i.e. the shadow on her chest)...

Here's a preview for my vector...I'll release the full-sized(8000) version when I finish my next project also based on her...^^

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii120/shawnhao/C_CVector1.jpg

What I sat out to do was just to vector her, but then I realized that I *could* expand the vector into a full-fledged wallpaper...which is what I did...^^

I found this awesome photo on sxc : http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=949490

I cut out the window, drew in the sunset and did some blends with different textures (hard to explain..:p)...

Anyways, I wanted to replicate the sunset scene(really sad btw) in the last episode of Chrono Crusade (you'll probably know what I'm talking about if you have seen the series). I wanted to create this sad overtone, and the feeling of warmth(life) being sucked away from her as the sun sets (i.e. the blue layer encroaching on her)...

The images seem a bit too *new* to me, so I used various textures to make the image look old and washed out, and applied various filters to achieve this pastel/oil painting kind of effect...Lastly I placed more focus on her face and brushed in the vignette...

That's all....enjoy~~~~~

PS. One thing though...I did my wall in 16Bit, so when I converted it down to 8Bit jpg, there were some faint artifacts on the wallpaper(i.e. uneven fading)...but since my screen is 8000:1, it might be more susceptible to slight color variations than normal LCDs...PNGs are not allowed for wallpapers, so if you do notice any artifacts, follow up with a post and I'll send you the PNG version of the wall...^^

PS2. 2 versions, 1920x1200 and 1600x1200, the black border(designed to place desktop icons) on the 1920 version was cut to fit in 1600...so download the one that fits your taste the best...