***** FULL VIEW PLEASE i'm pretty sure the thumbnail'll look crappy :p *****

Well .. I'm back ^^
A wallpaper featuring Tomoyo from Tsubasa Reservoir chronicle
Scan taken on minitokyo : http://gallery.minitokyo.net/view/54734/

I was thinking about the fan concept while daydreaming ;) ... I thought it was a pretty original idea even though i didn't know if it'll look good :p but after all the idea is worthwhile :p
it is the first time i thought the concept and composition BEFORE seeking for a scan ...

In all the other cases i saw the scan first and then decide to work with it ...

I first work on the fan itself ... i vectorize it entirely from a stock photo except the bottom round part of the fan (the one which looks more realistic )
( i draw every wood sticks of the fan one after another , each one have it's layer ) and use a nice soft wood texture on them ^^

I also use some blending options with the stoch photo to give the fan an realistic effect it didn't have with the vector ... This step add darker hints in the extremity of the fan tissue

Then i went in a scan-hunt step ^^

It took me a rather long time to browse scans galleries to find THE pecfect scan which will fit my idea ...
And then i found this scan and decided to use it ^^
The scan was pretty clean but have some amout of text on and book traces as you wan see on the scan thumbnail in the link ^^
So i cleaned it and re-cg some parts where the text and traces were ...

After that was a incrustation step : i blend the scan in the fan tissue
But the scan alone didn't fill all the tissue part so i had to extent it on the 2 sides to continue the scene right and left of the original scan ...
There, you may be able to see some flaws especially on some lotus leaves which are astride the extent parts and the scan ...

I'm not so proud with the background but i wanted to keep it simple because the main focus is the fan itself with the scan and its background :p

I left some japanese text on the scan ... even though i don't know what it means i prefer keeping some japanese script which fit better the idea than roman letters :p

You may think it's a strange idea but hope you guys like it ^^

Time : 2 days
Layers : about 60

EDIT Wooaa Highlighted ... thanks so much