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Description

This week’s project was an early yet long-overdue Valentine’s moment.

Back in the early ‘90s, Chris Claremont, the writer of the X-Men spin-off ‘Excalibur,’ intended Rachel Grey and Kitty Pryde to be a romantic couple—he’s said Rachel would have been the love of Kitty’s life. Unfortunately, Marvel wasn’t ready to have one of its more popular characters (Kitty) involved in a same-sex relationship. As a result, Claremont had to leave the relationship to subtext – subtext that went completely over the head of my oblivious, teenage, Catholic-school attending self.

But the world has changed since then--Last year, Kitty was confirmed to be bisexual in print. And although (as far as I know as of today) it hasn’t been confirmed, Rachel’s bisexuality has been hinted at in ways even I have picked up on.

Taking that into consideration, the idea that two characters who I’ve loved for thirty years or so could find romantic happiness with one another – on top of their friendship – is simply too much for my deceptively soft heart to resist.

So, here they are with a quiet moment together, just them. Thirty years late but not a moment too soon.

Happy Valentine’s day!

____________________________________________

Disclaimer: I’m red-green colorblind. Because of this, it’s difficult for me to tell similar shades/hues of different colors apart, and, therefore, I need to work with very limited palettes when I color pieces. For shading and highlights, I’ll start with a gray base and lighten or darken shades from there, and then add a color overlay (and, for some skin tones, attempt to add a blue overlay to make it less “hot”). I’ve often been told to be bolder in my highlighting and shading, and I’m trying to be so, but… sometimes it still seems pretty tame. I’m just saying this in case you mentioned I need to do that on a previous piece – I’m not ignoring you, and I appreciate the input. It’s just not very easy for me to implement confidently.

Description

This week’s project was an early yet long-overdue Valentine’s moment.

Back in the early ‘90s, Chris Claremont, the writer of the X-Men spin-off ‘Excalibur,’ intended Rachel Grey and Kitty Pryde to be a romantic couple—he’s said Rachel would have been the love of Kitty’s life. Unfortunately, Marvel wasn’t ready to have one of its more popular characters (Kitty) involved in a same-sex relationship. As a result, Claremont had to leave the relationship to subtext – subtext that went completely over the head of my oblivious, teenage, Catholic-school attending self.

But the world has changed since then--Last year, Kitty was confirmed to be bisexual in print. And although (as far as I know as of today) it hasn’t been confirmed, Rachel’s bisexuality has been hinted at in ways even I have picked up on.

Taking that into consideration, the idea that two characters who I’ve loved for thirty years or so could find romantic happiness with one another – on top of their friendship – is simply too much for my deceptively soft heart to resist.

So, here they are with a quiet moment together, just them. Thirty years late but not a moment too soon.

Happy Valentine’s day!

____________________________________________

Disclaimer: I’m red-green colorblind. Because of this, it’s difficult for me to tell similar shades/hues of different colors apart, and, therefore, I need to work with very limited palettes when I color pieces. For shading and highlights, I’ll start with a gray base and lighten or darken shades from there, and then add a color overlay (and, for some skin tones, attempt to add a blue overlay to make it less “hot”). I’ve often been told to be bolder in my highlighting and shading, and I’m trying to be so, but… sometimes it still seems pretty tame. I’m just saying this in case you mentioned I need to do that on a previous piece – I’m not ignoring you, and I appreciate the input. It’s just not very easy for me to implement confidently.