The paper

(2017)
The creativity of titles... though this was my orginal file name and I see no reason to change it. Quite ironically though, you can see like everything else but the paper, yet their hands' poses might indicate the paper is somewhere between their fingers. Wink/Razz

I've been wanting to draw this for so long, after getting an idea for the preview image of the first chapter. Of course, it's my favourite moment, Mida gets perplexed in her own comfort zone. I believe it's quite rare seeing her utterly clueless of what's going on. :XD: This took ages, ages to finish. I've lately been more and more into researching, and I've found the historic Japanese time which truly interests me: The Heian Period. The one peaceful time in the Japanese history, including poetry, calligraphy, court lives...

Well, some of you have heard of it, I spend like two days mainly doing research of jūnihitoe and more. ^^; Mainly for drawing referece, 'cause I couldn't understand those sleeves: at some angle they looked trianglular shaped, at some they didn't. And for those not familiar with the clothing the red thing covering her legs is not a skirt, but a hakama, wide and long pleaded trousers, nakabakama to be exact, which means: long hakama. Yes, the trouser legs are so long they form a kind of train which makes walking difficult. Just lovely.
Basically the clothing consists of an under kimono(s) and hakama worn over it. After that it's those detailed 'coats' worn over them secured with a string or what ever you call it. And then there's karaginu, the uppermost 'coat' which gets over all the other coat-like garments amd the securer string. It sounds rather simple but trust me it looks far more complicated. (Once I finally had all the layers of the garb done I couldn't help but to mix which was which, even if I did name them. XD) Also one thing is the sleeves don't become neatly from the shoulders, but a bit lower, which helps to fade the hand's shape rather well. It goes without saying having so many layers the outfit becomes heavy, but from what I've read the Heian people found naked skin ugly, so they simply covered it by layers and layers of fabric. As a result the women became tubes and, well, men weren't that different...
It was just that the sleeve didn't clear to me from that so I had to scan through hundreds of pics to find out how it goes. Drawing is sometimes quite effective way to learn. By looking and drawing I learnt much!
This scene is based on a fictional story and world of mine. The elves of the race worships dragons and are also dragons themselves. So while I know it's usually Chinese people who wear the dragon-patterned garment while Japanese tend to favour more nature-like things like flowers, birds and such, I cannot avoid this with this race. Becasue dragons are everything to them, they put them everywhere, even in clothing. ;) Also, while I have looked through many images of this clothing and other sites, Google isn't the best one for finding