Sailor Zodiac - Sailor Libra

For 's contest.

First off, just to get this out of the way... this pic does NOT preview/thumbnail well. The thumbnail is nice to give the overall composition, but if you're trying to see lines or details you're not going to see them unless you click.

Now for STATS:

Name: Amaranta (Latin: Flower that Never Fades)

Age: 18

Birthday: October 21

Starstone: Sapphire

Birthstone: Opal

Color: Blue, Rose

Technique: Judgment (Based on the judgment of ancient Egyptians in the afterlife [link] her weapon is a feather. Whatever it touches that isn't pure is obliterated.)

Likes: Music, Solitude, Beauty (not the superficial kind), Open-mindedness, Pondering, Dreaming (day or night), Observing

Dislikes: Drama, Whining, Dishonesty, Superficiality, Narrow-mindedness, Criticism

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Personality: While Libras are typically known to be chatty and outgoing, Amaranta leans on the dreamier, more serene side of the sign. She can chat it up with friends, but strives to be a better listener in any conversation. She loves having fun and a lot of laughs, but has a tendency to give away her depth of thought and analysis when she speaks. This can make her appear super serious during first impressions.

Personal Remarks: Sailormoon was the anime that got me to learn the anime style, so I thought it would be a nice nostalgic nod to my past to create a senshi for the contest.

This time around I made use of lots and lots of textures. I went around the Net for stock photos of textures I liked and then clone-brushed them at high resolutions to get the seamless effect I wanted. I didn't use all I found, but quite a few (including two different kinds of opals). I also tried out several new techniques with layers and gradients. In fact, the learning curve on this thing was the main time sucker.

Since the Libra jewel is Opal, I thought it'd be cool to make all the parts normally colored in white opal. That was a bit tougher to pull off than I anticipated, but I love the result.

Libra metal is copper, so everything on her that's metallic is copper.

With that decided, it was a matter of matching the right shades of rose/pink/blue to it.

Much higher rez version will be posted next.