here, we have a grand total of seven... ty.. five.. fucking... layers, spread across seven sets to do this bitch. i probably could have just done it in five layers and no sets, however, i had a -lot- of things go wrong when merging some of the layers, because a metric fucking ton of them were types that just didn't want to cooperate when merged... and of course, things like the glasses -had- to have it's own layer (or, rather... three layers) because it's a bitch like that.. and hell, the size of the final .psd file grew exponentially... it started off, being inked and flat coloured in under 4mbs... but as i added things, tinkered around with lighting and shading, and inevitably polishing it off, the file size distended to an astounding 25mbs, at the time of completion (and by that time, i was sick of looking at this *grumpyface*).

recently, i watched some of michelle branch's aol sessions. i was actually -very- entranced by the way her skin and hair reflected the blacklight that gently blanketed everyone the studio, so that inspired me to work the shine on the leather a bit differently and to go apeshit with blacklighting effects, and for the most part, i'm actually quite happy with it... at least, for a first attempt. i'll probably hate it within a month or two. just like the typical attitude of every other artist.

the rose still doesn't look right to me, but this was the best of a dozen attempts. a dozen fail flowers make a fail bouquet.

credits to ~raya for the outfit, ~klar for the pose, and disturbed for the lyrics in the background.