♦ “Moonlight Shadow” » 64 Kb (Normal)

If you’ve combed through the “Upcoming” section, this one will no doubt seem familiar; it was the second half of the “If You Need Her” pic idea, based on the fanfic of the same name. One of the reasons the “If You Need Her” CG took so long to make was because I had some difficulty figuring out how to mesh the “Miroku-emerging-from-his-grave” picture with the visual Scribe originally pitched to me. In the end, I realized that it would be best if I kept the two pics separate, and settle instead on CGing the former. But I didn’t want to part with this pic either, so instead of letting it lounge in the “Upcoming” section forever, I decided to try the “dodge/burn/smudge” technique on it.

The visual is based on If You Need Her’s Session Two chapter, “Sango’s Sorrow”. It’s easily one of the most indelible pieces of literature I’ve read, mostly because the behavior and reactions of the cast to the death of a comrade ring so true that you can almost hear both the original and dub voices speaking the dialogue. If one of the main group were to die during the quest in the actual series, one only has to read this chapter in order to know how they would react.

Needless to say, I loved this chapter, and wanted to create an atmosphere appropriate to the scene where a wounded Miroku fights his last mental battle with Asesu while a teary Sango lies close to him, keeping watch over his heartbeat. I chose dark blue for the main hue and dodged and burned accordingly, and though I don’t usually slather my pics with lyrics, I couldn’t resist doing so for this one, even though I tried not to make the words too visible. The song is “Moonlight Shadow” by Missing Heart, which accompanies Part IV of the chapter.