nywaaaah yes I DID make you draw it Alex-chan grin You KNOW there is NO possible way that I'd be hunkering over for three days with one of THE BEST artists on Media Miner and beyond and NOT ask for a pic.. LOL!

But let me backtrack a bit for the others of you out there, and here's a tidbit of history about what in the heck me and Alex (TK) are talking about ^__^

On August 23-25, Tokumei Kibon (Alex) and her sister RanFan were SO nice and they let me stay with them for those days for the CN Anime convention that we all attended and had a blast at!! While lounging at the hotel, I got to see Tokumei's sketches (they're SOOO cool!!) and watch her draw (EVEN COOOOLER!!!) and while me and her sis worked on a mini-Chichi-collaboration for her, Alex was busy drawing me a little gift of two characters she's seen me draw plenty of times before ^__^

Before I get into what I did to colour this, let me tell you that the way Alex drew Inu Yasha and Kagome is AMAZING. No short of it. Tokumei hasn't seen IY and hasn't drawn IY before, and already she's mastered all of the details that I miss all of the time!! ^__^ Her own style is influenced in this drawing, as well as her masterful creativity with poses, picking a cute little "bow over head" thing that I wouldnt' have thought of in millions of years XD.

My part of this artwork was the colouring and the background, which took days rubs sore back & computer eyes LOL. I did the absolute BEST I could to try and come even remotely close to Tokumei's GORGEOUS colouring style, and I hope that I managed to do some justice ^^;;;; Once again, I went with the whole gradated flow, which always takes exceedingly long sigh but anyway, the characters took about a week or so to colour in and finish up, and the background took surprisingly only two days to do (I did a lot of it while watching the finale of American Idol, GO KELLY!! But Justin YOU'RE HOT! lol) I have a screenshot of Miroku and Kagome from that Episode 16 against a beautiful sunset, and so I thought it was appropriate for this picture, seeing as I coloured the foreground pictures to indicate a darkening light theme. Adding in the details, such as the grass was brutal, but what was worse was smoothing out the colours to avoid mouse trails in the sky and the grass. I could have worked on it longer and smoothed it out a bit more, but I'm happy with the way it is (and equally exhausted XD)

Now, if you're wondering about the title and "What is as beautiful as friendhip?" it would be referring to the sunset, since a sunset is as seemingly elegant and stirring and colourful as friendships (nyeh, I like to have strange metaphorical titles.. lol, just a habit ^^) and yeah, it's another long author comment nuywaaaah!! grin but lastly I wanted to say...

It was of great honour to work with someone like Tokumei Kibon. Undoubtedly, she is well admired by many and for strongly evident reasons. Her talent and skill is incredibly exceptional and entirely beyond expectation each time, and the humility she has of her own skill is truly admirable. I thank her SO much for everything, and just never giving up on me ^^ If you take a look back on my CG-ing experiences throughout the length of time, you'll see the differences from the old to the new, and this is all of high credit to Alex with her advice about programs, colouring, tablets and all of her vast expertise. I can't even come to say how much her work has affected my own and many others. Thank you Tokumei for such a privelige! ^^

Peace. Love. Anime.

Kaliko Rosa