Author's note:

I am in debt to the fates today. I finished it! One of my oldest projects and one of my personal challenges. I am sooo happy about it, and I hope it makes up for a LONG period of silence. I haven't submitted a wallpaper since last winter! Evil busy times~ While most of the time I get more wallpapers done in the summer, I had hardly any time to breathe, let alone make a wallpaper. You guys have no idea how content I am feeling now just because I finally had more than an hour to fiddle and even finished a piece. Hope I hear from some of you in the comments!

Description:

This wallpaper is a combination of two processes, and it would be terribly remiss to not mention them both. This beautiful piece wouldn't exist if I only had one.

The first process was creating the background. It's not a photo back there. It's actually the result of fiddling on my computer and combining/blending a photo of a ripple in a pond with at a snapshot of the anime's setting, more specifically the bridge at the zoo. After that, I used an image of a blue rose from the anime, doubled it, and carefully worked the pieces, petals and leaves, to fit together, altering the rose of one into a red one, in the center of the ripple. At the end, there were at least 11 layers, but I enjoyed the look and the symbolism too much to stop at one. Beware, there are more ripple Blood+ wallpapers coming up.

It actually took me another year to actually start putting the images together, and then I began using a new masking technique I've been using in my newer wallpapers, layers of the background faded just right around layers of the snapshot to disquise (a) any lower quality image or (b) more often, disguising a difficult edge of a vector. It took me a long time to choose the first two images - from the scene on the rooftop. After that, I couldn't figure out what else that fit and blended with the images. I became truly stuck when I found my main image for Saya. The scan was speckled; it took ages to figure out how to disguise that without losing the clarity. I tried and put it up again many times before today, where I managed to fix it, using a smoothing filter at the lowest level a couple times. With that, the floodgates of my muse were opened and I gained a new stubborn streak. I would not be turned away until I felt it was finished.

The images I finally settled on show both the complexity of Saya and Solomon's relationship and hints at his two sides, the side that was perfect for Diva and the side that yearned for something more and suffered for it, after meeting Saya. It shows Saya's strength and her vulnerability, Solomon's hope threaded with coldness and suffering. The words echo the images, the duality of Solomon and Saya when confronted with each other until the end.

This wallpaper also reflects my weakness towards star-crossed or impossible couples, couples that can never be. He/she is in love with someone else, yet the one-sided devotion never fades, even increases, love bringing out something deeper in the character. There are some really beautiful couples of hopeless love, and it may be the subject of my next challenge.

I am really happy with this wallpaper. Not only do I believe that it demonstrates Saya and Solomon's relationship better than my last two tributes to them (I am going to redo or rethink some of my older, favorite wallpapers along with my new ideas). It blends my two styles, back in the day where I created wallpapers by blending snapshots only, and now, still using that but using background images, textures, masking, etc. to take them to the next level.

This is dedicated to my far away sister, Kira. She's been patiently waiting for it, and she appreciates characters like Solomon as much as me.

Credits for the main images of Saya and Solomon (c) MiniTokyo. The photo has been on my computer for years now.