Base:
Cora 2010 by ~blood-cocoa on deviantART
For the HD contest thread. I need to practice denim. Like, a lot. Curse my lack of attention and patience! I drew and pixeled the text myself, so I'm pretty proud of that, even if it is a little crappy...the sparkler was kind of fun too, I'm not used to drawing my own props...or using props in general...
Anyway, when I "finished" her the first time, I thought she looked incredibly patriotic. So I decided to play up that theme before actually entering her. The part I'm most happy about is the hair, but for the fringe on the right. Took forever before I finally decided to just leave it along. Also, I really like the shape of the top, but my shading leaves something to be desired. mainly in terms of highlights >.< I guess it's just that I can never find the right balance between light and dark. The shadows/highlights always seem to overwhelm the base color of my chosen palette. Oh well. That is what practice is for, no?