NOTE: I hope the Wing Watermark isn't a problem, I have a personal policy to put it on all my images to better claim it as my work. It is not intended to be included in the picture in anyway.

my adaptation of Degas' "L'etoile (La danseuse sur la scene) - translated: The Star (Dancer on stage)
done for Twilight Samurai's "Classic Collaborations" challenge. However, after re-reading the guidelines, I'm worried that I followed the original too closely...I'm not sure, but I put too much energy into it to not at least attempt to submit. I may do a second submission, though I'm not sure if I'll have time.

I am relatively happy with how it came out, even though I wish it were better. the pastel got a bit muddy in a lot of places, but then again I'm unsure if that could be helped with such a blendable media as that. It's not at all like paint where one can simply paint over an area once it has dried. so it was very difficult trying to preserve what clean lines there were in the piece.
so I suppose I'm thankful I could salvage it at least this much. I was surprised how fast it went, then again it was one of those projects that is just fast moving, were going slow doesn't really necessarily help, or can cause you to second guess and screw up worse than if you just go with it. I find that happens a lot with pastel.

I chose Degas because he's my favorite of the great impressionists, and I thought I'd at least do one of the impressionist style, kind of as a tribute to them because back when they first started doing their style, they went through a lot of the same crap we, as anime/manga artists, do today with a bunch of people telling them that what they did was "not art" and so on, so they went through a lot of the same struggles.

Specifics:
Reference of original painting:http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f353/katiemakescoffee/degasetoile.jpg
Time Taken: Approximately 3-4 hours
Media used: Sketch - 4H pencil, Color - chalk pastel and Prismacolor colored pencil
Subject character: My OC, Kiri (Haven't drawn her in YEARS o_O)