Finally done! The character is Oosawa Masaki from Ice Revolution.



TLDR version:
It took 1.5-2 weeks for this wallpaper. I tried something new for myself by layering soft gradients, doing perspective, and wall expansion.

I spent the majority of the time on the hair and went through a lot of revisions. I know the reflection isn't in proper perspective and the hair reflection isn't right either. I can't do anything about it since I have not studied 3D perspective in relation to reflection. I have only studied basic perspective.

LONG version:

Read more... (click to view)

What's wrong? Incineration was too hot for you? Cool off with Radiant Frost. A wallpaper featuring Oosawa Masaki from Ice Revolution, an ice skating manga. She is depicted as a tomboy who loves martial arts. However, she runs into a young boy who saved her on the way to school. She followed clues that lead her to this mysterious boy. Overwhelmed by her infinity towards him, she decided to pick up ice skating in order to get closer to him. As the manga unfolds she decided to change her tomboyish ways and become a more refined cute young girl.

I had a hard time coming up with a title. I couldn't find one good word to sum it up. I settled with Radiant Frost. I used Radiant because the word refers to her joy and enthusiasm. She's also bright like the sun melting away all her opponents in martial arts D:. The frost part refers to how she is tempering herself to become cooler and more refined. She is trying to become more elegant instead of rough. Frost also refers to the ice of the rink. I also liked these two words because they are opposites of each other and will confuse a couple of people, lol.

This wallpaper felt like it took ages but I spent around 1-2 weeks on it. 1-1.5 weeks vectoring Masaki and a couple of days doing the background. Oh my goodness... I did this wallpaper on impulse. I was reading the manga and came across this and went, "MUST DO WALLPAPER" and proceeded to vector her from... the translated release which had poor quality. Only after I vectored 99.99% of her that I grew a brain and decided to look up a 3000p RAW for detail comparison. Man... I am stupid lol.

The hardest part to vector was her HAIR. I went through many revisions of her hair and spent days upon days. Until I finally rendered it in a way that I really liked. I tried to go for the "piling-a-load-of-soft-gradients-on-each-other-to-make-shades-and-shapes" for the wallpaper's style. I didn't go insane like on other walls that people have done because I wanted to keep it soft and subtle. I am really amazed on how fast I nailed the eyes. It only took 1 revision for her eyes. On average I probably revised each part of her body (hair, arm, leg, clothing) at least 5 times each. That's where all the time went into and it's so consuming. I wish I could just 1 shot everything instead of throwing 3-5 hrs of work out the window and back to square one.

For the background, I didn't want to do much. I decided to try something new and did expansion. It's something I haven't done before... especially with perspective ;_;. A lot of things got distorted and weird but I caught them when I QC'd my wall. There are slight ones but shouldn't bother the average person. For the ice... I would have done a straight gradient but that would have been BORING. So I stacked a lot of gradients upon each other to get variations on the ice. The reflection, I know something is wrong with it but I didn't study perspective in reflections. I ended up just vectoring the reflection on the scan and blurring it a bit. An issue I ran into was what to put in the top right. I went through the manga and figured out that there are actually boxes for more seats. That went pretty nicely. For the light, it's suppose to be a single spot light compared to the scan which had several. I naturally like high contrast and went for it.

I am proud of this wall specifically for the vector because a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into it. PLEASE FULL VIEW as usual. I added 1280x1024 for you FULL SCREEN HERETICS. If there is any artifacting (usually 1680x1050 from resizing) feel free to pm me and I will personally resize the wall and send it to you so there are no artifacts.

Original Scan:


Vector:


EDIT: Updated with short and long version. Sorry, it's a habit typing too much. ;d