NOTE: If anyone is interested, prints can be made available for this pic. I will not be using the dA print service though; I will post from my own home:

LARGE (a little smaller than an A4 page) = $10 AU
MEDIUM (half an A4 page) = $6 AU
SMALL (approx. 4 x 5) = $4 AU

See my journal for more details: [link]

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CHARACTER: Albel Nox, resident katana swordsman in ‘Star Ocean: Till the End of Time’!

OWNER: Tri-Ace. Lucky S.O.B's. >_>

PIC STATUS: Fanart/wallpaper. (Fan source: "Star Ocean: Till the End of Time".)

MEDIUMS: Sakura Micron felt tips (line art), Photoshop CS (colouring), Photoshop Brushes (background), Paintshop Pro 5 (tweaking)

SHOUT-OUTS: Brushes can be downloaded here:
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FONT used in wallpaper: “Krazy Nights” - download here: [link]

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ARTIST THOUGHTS: Technically I could’ve uploaded this as a deviation without all the brushes and whatnot, but the only reason I bit the bullet and drew a fanart in the first place was to make a wallpaper. Why? I don’t know if it’s just my poor search skills, but I just can’t for the life of me find Star Ocean 3 wallpapers which AREN’T official, let alone wallpapers of characters beside Fayt and (ugh) Sophia. And that hardly seems fair considering how cool the supporting characters are, hence I raise my pencil in protest and pay homage to my favourite character, who is cool enough to have prodded me into drawing my first fanart in six years! ‘Tis Albel Nox, and if any first-timers are confused by his appearance then don’t worry cause that happened to me too… contrary to what many people think, yes he is male. Yes, he wears a skirt but… that’s beside the point. All that matters is that he has a whopping big sword. NOOO NOT THAT WAY. >______< *Nosebleed* C’mon all you SO3 players, you know the drill! *Sings* Air Slash, Palm of Destruction, Air Slash, Palm of Destruction… *enemy dies 10 times before it hits the ground* I like being a sadist. Yesh indeed. ^^

So, what’s going on in the pic? ^^ Nothing deep and meaningful, just a strange idea I latched onto and thought would make a funny wallpaper image… it cast my mind back to Star Ocean and how you can make the characters invent stuff, and I still remember getting them to create really lousy items, including the ‘Disgusting Doll.’ (Which quite frankly didn’t look all that disgusting in my opinion, but who’d listen to me? ) Now I reckon it would’ve been much better if we could invent voodoo dolls, at least that’d be a more amusing way to play around with the Emotion levels then with boring old Tears of Aphrodite potions! And well… I guess it goes without saying that Albel would be the one most likely to take up the task with undue enthusiasm. The doll he’s needling to death is the lead character Fayt – don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind Fayt and I’m an advocate for the Fayt/Albel pairing but um… love hurts. There’s also the fact that Albel gets beaten in battle by Fayt during the game, so er, yeah, hurray for grudges. ^^ I for one, am wondering where Albel is going to insert that last needle. O__O;; I’m sure you and I are thinking of some choice locations at this very moment. Oh man how I hate needles. (Sorry Fayt)
Lastly, the wallpaper title is my kudos to Albel’s voice actor who pulls off the best sounding evil laugh! Albel evil laughs every now and then when he levels up, and whenever that happens I just have to laugh along with him because evil laughing makes the world go round, yes it does. *Nods sagely* Well… that and the poke smiley. *Stands corrected*

TECHNICAL STUFF: Still experimenting with cel-shading and this was the result of my latest tests… all that layering left me tuckered out, not to mention it took about 8 hours alone to colour Albel and then another 5 hours to get the whole wallpaper looking just right! (Hence, 13 hours of work done in a heatwave with no fan. Strangely enough, I think I work better in heat… ) This time instead of using the polygon tool along with the fill tool, I used the gradient tool to colour the selections because I wanted to see if I could get a fade effect happening. Was I successful? Only you guys can say! No shinies this time, but oh ho ho they’ll be back so don’t let your retinas get too comfortable.

I learnt from my last wallpaper outing about other wallpaper resolutions which I didn’t know existed, so this time around I’ve hopefully catered for all resolutions – the original file is 1600x1200, is that the largest wallpaper resolution? (Gad, I still don’t know! >_> Either way, same process as last time – this wallpaper is free to use for anyone and of course I’d be very glad if any of you wanted to spread the Albel voodoo lurve around. I’m happy at least to have someone to perv at now whenever I load my comp, hee hee hee! If you want to use it but need a larger resolution, go ahead and note me, I won’t bite. >:3 And er… so the story ends, enjoy peoples. ^__^