I couldn't stick with bright wallpapers for very long, could I? XD Back to my dark and grungy ways! And finally an Air wallpaper. I haven't made one in so long...and here it's my favorite series! *is ashamed* Anyhoo, I don't know why I made this one how I did, but I did. The inspiration certainly didn't come from the scan...I guess I was just thinking darkly! Also, I was listening to Haibane Renmei music, and it's a pretty dark anime that has the motif of crows, too. I saw this scan, and I thought, "Well, I haven't seen that one before! Misuzu in a different art style!" The original is here:
http://www.animepaper.net/gallery/scans/AIR/item75627/

So I extracted first, and then I just proceeded to make the background. It's all brushwork, even the texture. I used some grungy brushes and just overlayed a huge stream of them. I also used those brushes and the burn tool on Misuzu. I changed her blending to "lighten" as well...which is different from what I usually do. I think it ended up looking quite cool. Of course there were color and gradient overlays, too. I used some brushes and then the zoom radial blur on them...to create the effect of "whoosh!" XD Zooming through the air!

As for the crows, I searched on Google for crow pics, and then I extracted them, placed them here and there, and blurred them slightly. Oh, and overlayed them. I think they really added that needed touch! I didn't have them in it at first, and it really looked plain. I didn't know what to do though...then, "Ah! How about crows???" :3 Thus, the crows....and the title. Took me a while to decide on the title and how I wanted it. ^^; I hope it looks ok.

This took probably 3 hours. I hope you like it! Oh, and Alex, this is dedicated to you. :3 I'm sure you wanted a bright and happy Misuzu one...sorry!!