Impulsive Gift

“What’s this? I thought you didn’t like chocolate?”
”It’s not for me.”

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This is my entry for #Kawaii-OP-Oc’s Valentines Contest, though true to my own ideas about these two, I’ve tried to keep it sorta gen-ish, just with a pairing if you know what to look for.

So. Loki hears about Valentine’s Day from the other women aboard the Moby Dick. She thinks it sounds kinda like a waste of money, so she forgets all about it until the next time she’s on shore leave. In a rickety little condiments-and-all-sorts shop, she’s browsing though the trays of seeds when Marco turns up out of thin air, as he does sometimes. He smiles at her, then gets to haggling with the storekeeper over something or the other.

Then Loki’s attention is caught by a rack of chocolates in pride of place on the counter, and suddenly, that holiday she had dismissed so easily before pops into her mind…

This took freakin’ AGES. That background is so insanely detailed it killed my hand to sketch it, even with breaks in between the foreground and background. No shortcuts for this, no simple ways of doing things- it was all in the lineart. My writer’s callus sure got a lot of exercise with this.

On the other hand, I’m insanely proud of it. Usually I wouldn’t have the patience for something this intricate. And I love their expressions, their poses, the background and everything else~ But special love for Marco, because, unusually, he behaved like a little angel while I was drawing this. I’m very very happy with how he turned out as a result. ^^

That’s also Loki’s 2Y design. She’s pretty much the same, bar a few minor outfit differences. One of her most evident features (maybe even more characteristic than those wide, slanted blue eyes of hers) is that she’s one of those people that start looking older at a young age, and then seem to just… not age for the next thirty or so years. (Like Shakky, for example. ) Her hair is a wee bit shorter, because she cut it to chin-length after the Marineford War, and two years is just enough for it to grow back to the old length. (I should know, I cut mine to chin-length a few years ago, and it took two years to grow to the length Loki’s got hers now.) Also, her shorts are tighter and longer (because I felt like it ), and her sash has changed colour. The tattoo on her wrist is actually the Whitebeard cross-and-crescent-moon design; the horizontal arms of the cross wrap around her arm. Mainly it’s there ‘cuz I wanted to give her that version of the tattoo, but until I looked at my Leirivane caste-tattoos and had a little self-congratulatory moment over how cool they looked I had no idea where I should put it. It’s on both wrists, anyway, for some reason only Loki knows…

As for Marco’s 2Y design? Not much difference, really. I figure if he’s hardly changed in 22 years, then a mere 2 years more ain’t gonna do much to him. (Besides which, considering the other attributes of phoenixdom, it’s entirely possible he might be immortal, or close to it, anyway…) So all I did was add that pattern around the bottom of his shirt. ‘Cause it’s cool.

Basically this whole picture was an excuse for me to go crazy with the background details. ‘Cause I love details, and I love looking through them to see what else is going on. That’s one reason I love OP- it’s chock full of details like that~

See that red and black thing on the table in front of Marco? That’s Beansyweensies. He’s a little ceramic… thing… my cousin gave me years and years ago. We’ve got no clue what it is or what the hell Michael was on when he made it, but I think it’s cute, so it sits on my shelf beside the computer when I’m writing, and stares at me. And that weird statue thing with the candle in it’s head? I dunno where that came from, but I want one now. The plant on the table is a young fig tree, or it’s supposed to be anyway. We’ve got one in the back yard at the moment, and it’s given us a few yummy figs so far this season~ And that skin hanging from the rafters behind the garlic braid? I’m not sure if there’s any animal with a pelt patterned like that, but I like zebra-stripes and spots, so I made it up. There are geodes all over the place, because geodes are cool, and mushrooms, because there’s nothing like a mushroom or two to give a shop a mystical sort of air. And maps galore, because maps are fun. Guess whose wanted posters are on the table and stuck to that pole.

Oh, and the sign up on the shop front says “Valentine’s Day Specials!! ”

Enjoy your chocolate, Marco.

WIP version:


AND LOOK AT THIS AWESOME VERSION *Eriin84 DID!:

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Marco is © to Eiichiro Oda
Loki is © to me, *Kemmasandi. So is the art.
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