Blood Legacy -- Queens

So!
I know it's been forever since I posted any art, but I think this is a good way to start again.

This is a sort of poster image for my fanfiction sequel to Blood+. Since Blood+ is in fact a fan-work of Blood the Last Vampire, I have high hopes for this story. Don't know what media it will end up in (text, manga, maybe even anime) but for now it's just text with some images. Most of the story hasn't even been written, but it's all in my head. Those of you who know me from FFN, you know this story as "The Otherside." I changed the title because I wanted to focus more on the lives of Diva's children.

As for the poster itself, it portrays the 3 living Chiropteran Queens, Saya and Diva's two daughters. I've named them Irene and Julia (people in Blood+ already seem terribly fond of naming after others). Now, I KNOW these aren't the names given to Diva's children in the character book, but like Blood+ before me, I've taken great liberties with the original material.

Irene, on the left, has a bit of an identity issue, having grown up in Saya's shadow, with everyone saying she's "Just like Saya." In all truth, she's a bit emo, she even has the classic haircut. She's not hardcore about it, though, which is probably a good thing. She has the "younger" sister attitude, defering to Julia.

Julia, on the right, takes after Diva. Well except for the sociopathical egotism. She realized early on that her uncanny resemblance to her mother was unsettling to some of the older members of Red Shield. In order to ease this discomfort, once she realized the ability to change her appearance at will, she chose to alter some of her features to look more like her father. No one had the heart to tell her her mother had done the same thing.

Now, enough backstory, a little more artsy stuff. I used several pictures of Saya for reference, and one of Diva for Julia's eyes, another of Riku for her hair. Saya should look Baddass in a campy sort of way, as Julia is totally upstaging her at it (they don't exactly get along--it's complicated.) She's also sort of sheilding Irene, who she loves dearly and has always been protective of.
Now, I know that Julia's shirt is breaking the pallette. As it is, I am really frustrated with it. I tried changing the color, but every time I hit "Accept" it went right back.

That leads me to the media discussion. This was done in Corel Painter Elements 4, start to finish. I have a new penabled computer, and am now without any form of PS. The computer came with a free copy of Painter, so I've been teaching myself to use it instead. There are only four things I really hate about it so far, and they're all things that PS has that Painter doesn't: 1 Transform, 2 Layer properties (multipy etc.) 3 blur/smudge/sponge/dodge/burn that will work on everything the same way, and 4. Nifty effects. *sigh* Oh well, I'm watching for CS2 to get less expensive, as that was what I was trained in. I've used a little of CS3 and honestly, I don't like it.
But there are things I do like about Painter, particularly the ability to make images look like they were actually painted. This time I experimented with a watercolor brush I hadn't used before. Interesting texture, I must say. Not 100% sure I like it, but I'll go with it for now. I also like the pallette function and colorwheel better than photoshop's setup.

Not sure how long this took me, I tend to go on art binges and loose track of time. This took about 2 and a half, so I'm guessing maybe 5 hours.

Saya does not belong to me. Yet.