<sub>"Deep down inside
I think we're all the same.
Try not to judge someone
And never shame.
I do believe that people are good.
They just want hope and respect
And to be understood

Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's strange
But the truth of the heart is people can change."

Melissa Etheridge - Truth of the Heart</sub>



Something I've been meaning to draw for a veeery long time now is Seifer x Zell fanart.

This is the first time I've actually drawn either of them, even though I've been a die-hard fan of this pairing ever since I first played the game.

I haven't played FF8 for some years now and that's why they might look different from what they supposed to look like and more like how I imagine them to be.. If that made any sense..

And since I don't often talk about this pairing I'll use this chance to babble about it a bit.

I have a lot of fanfic ideas that are never going to see the light of day, but somehow I always end up drawing fanart for my own unwritten stuff.. This particular picture is supposed to be an illustration for the first one of a trilogy of fics called 'The Lost Days'.

It takes place 1 year after the Sorceress' defeat, and Seifer has been missing for all this time. After he is found, nearly dead, by Zell and Selphie on one of their missions to the desert and taken back to Garden, strange things start to happen to the student body. People are attacked and drained of all their magic and lifepoints, and all suspicion falls on the former Sorceress' Knight, despite the fact that he is still recovering from severe wounds inflicted by an unidentified monster. Zell is the only one who believes that Seifer might be innocent, but he doesn't have a chance to proove so, as Seifer makes a run for it. Unwilling to let him disappear again, and break a promise made to Edea to protect the ex-knight, Zell follows after. Too stubborn for his own good, he's determined to crack open Seifer's shell and solve the mistery surrounding his missing year, the only clue to which is a worn and battered diary with a few lost pages...

The summary doesn't quite cover the whole plot.. as always. >_> All I can say is that it's a thriller/action type story with a base for romance... and lots of quarreling, because that's what Zell/Seifer is all about!

The picture illustrates one scene in the latter part of the would-be fic and, probably, the only moment of true happiness in the whole story.. Because it's not a happy tale. Yeah..

But you probably don't need all this description to enjoy the pic.. and I doubt that anyone has read this far anyway. ^^



<sub>Tools I used: 0.5B mechanical pencil, CorelPhotoPaint and a couple of references to get the realistic shadows effect.

Time: a few hours of drawing and about a week o' coloring.

Coloring style: I tried to make it as realistic as possible and I think it's a big step forward for me.

Technique: First I applied the base color, then shadows, then highlights. I started out with a white BG, later adding water and the blue reflections on the skin.

The hardest part: Urggh... Zell's face..</sub>

Critique discouraged, because I like the picture as it is and I already know all my mistakes, k?