Another random piece of Novella art. Originally, I was just going to draw Akisa (center). As I finished her, I thought it would be fun to draw each of them in a holiday costume of some kind. When I hit upon Novella's (right) expression with regards to her clothing, I had to draw Miki along with her.

To be honest, this is a lazy piece. I didn't put as much effort into it as I did with "Heresy". You can see this especially with the background. Unlike most of my art, the background here is completely digital. It didn't turn out too badly, but it wasn't the same as if I followed the technique all the way through.

NOTICE: The opinions of the character portrayed in this image ARE NOT necessarily those of the author.

Okay, background about the image first.

Miki is a very religious person as well as a closeted lesbian. The crux of her character is that she cannot resolve her religion and her sexual orientation. As a result, she has a lot of self-loathing beneith her surface. In the story, she meets the andrognyous Novella, a pre-transitional MTF. Miki comes to believe that Novella would make the perfect boyfriend, being that "he" is percieved as male to those around her, as well as feminine enough to satisfy her tastes. Unfortunately, besides this self-deception, she unwittingly manipulates Novella in order to satisfy her own ends. This psychological condition is something I like to refer to as "The Miki Complex".

This is a little drawing of Novella in what is known as "girl mode". She's featured in somewhat shocked curiousity of the woman staring back at her in the mirror. Her utterance, "Am I?" may be simple but quite significant. (Which is also difficult to explain if you're not already familiar with Gender Dysphoria and whatnot.)

I drew this with the idea the Novella has never even tried to dress as a girl up until this point. Beforehand, she existed in "andro", as in androgynous -- consisting largely of baggy clothing, sweatpants, and a bandana.

Here is yet another image of my favorite character from Novella: College Journal Manga -- one of my stories. Akisa is shown here in a central perspective, from the inside of a locker.

I spent a great deal of time with this image, perfecting the underlying sketch to the best of my ability and patience. The sketch as mechanical pencil and charcoal, then colored in photoshop.