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At long last, we come to where I was originally planning to end Winxsona Winter . [Though I'm sure some of you remember that last week I said I'd finally decided, yeah, I will go ahead with Weeks 7 & 8 and really see this thing through ]

Week 6 was sort of a free-choice, "Any Canon Transformation," and I was debating right up until I finished last week's entry which one I was going to pick. Long story as short as possible: The other transformations I was seriously considering were not actually from the Winx Club show, they were from other supplemental media like the Comics...Or I did briefly consider re-visiting the "On Ice" Transformation(?) you all saw me take on back in November , but that one specifically got taken out of the running because how Canon it is and whether it was ever supposed to be a proper Transformation or not is highly up in the air.

In the end, Sirenix won out of a combination of personal preference [of the in-show Transformations that haven't already been covered in Winxsona Winter, it's probably my favorite], how easy I thought it would be to break down the design, and how readily I know fan-made resources are available for it. [...Though to be fair, that ended up really just meaning I didn't have to draw another set of wings from scratch in this case, since I aim for the in-show style and not the more detailed promo-art style. There was a handful of resources I thought I might use going in that I ended up skipping entirely.]

Now, allow me to explore a tangent for a minute about Sirenix's fandom perception vs. my own feelings. You can skip this by scrolling until you see  if you really don't care and just want to hear about the art process.

Most Winx veterans already know this, but in case you don't: Sirenix does not have a great reputation in the fanbase. "I hate the design," "It's not unique enough to each Winx," "Why didn't they go full-mermaid with it instead?" "Harmonix was better—why did they replace it with this??" etc. All common complaints you'll hear about why Sirenix is The Worst™.

[At least before the Season 8 redesign, it seems like people generally like that version better, but stick a pin in that, we'll come back to it.]

I had to go back and check previous Sirenix drawings I've made , and I even went so far as to find a journal that Kid-Me posted when we first saw Sirenix in the show...Because I was having a hard time remembering how I felt about Sirenix when it first hit the scene. I thought I remembered liking it, but after *checks notes* over ten years  (!!!) of listening to the rest of the fandom bemoan how much they hate Sirenix, and knowing even I do not have the most positive feelings towards Season 5 as a whole [lots of interesting ideas, lots of not-great execution of those ideas], I really couldn't remember. Did I like Sirenix at first, or did I hate like everyone else seems to and I'm giving past-me too much credit?

As it turns out, I was remembering correctly: It seems past-me did in fact like Sirenix, I'm not just projecting my modern feelings onto a rocky past to try and smooth things over. Good!

Why does that matter? Well, I think it speaks a lot to how vocal the fandom at large has been in its distaste for Sirenix...And more subtly, how easy it can be to get roped into the Sirenix Hate Bandwagon if you already have problems with Season 5, which most of the fandom does.

I could go much deeper into this than even that—Sirenix is kind of an interesting case study when you start to break down the design elements, and I'll touch on some of that in a minute when we get to the art itself—but for now, I just want to ask that if you yourself are historically Not A Fan of Sirenix, that for a moment you re-consider: Is it possible some of your dislike of the design is misplaced, and has more to do with what Season 5 as a whole represents?

...Honestly, I'm considering making a "We were too hard on Sirenix" post of some kind [maybe my first foray into a Youtube video with voice-over?] because I think there's so much more to discuss, but I'm going to try and put the lid on the rabbit hole and get back to the art for today...

This is not going to sound like I'm moving on, but it is relevant: I will admit I'm not as crazy about 2D Sirenix , as I've clearly drawn here, vs. the 3D version that was actually our first exposure to it.

But say it with me: I didn't have time to re-learn the Winx style but in 3D if I wanted to get this piece out anytime soon compared to when the last one went up. So I made my peace with that fact and moved on with life. [There is a small chance we'll revisit that idea in the future though, since many years ago I was brave enough to try the 3D Winx Style multiple times and it would very interesting to see how my improved art skills in that time are likely to make fresh attempts look infinitely better.]

That said, in studying screenshots to prepare [as I always do], I pretty quickly found that Daphne's Sirenix is probably my favorite...And then I was promptly kind of surprised [borderline appalled] to learn/remember that we never actually see Daphne's Sirenix in 3D.

I bring this up because I think it speaks to the idea that the Winx's Sirenixes were designed for the 3D version first, and 2D later, which probably has something to do with why I personally prefer the 3D version. Daphne's, on the other hand, seems like it may have been designed as 2D from the beginning without 3D in mind, so hers generally looks different [better?] compared to the other girls. And, to be fair, we also don't see Daphne's until Season 6, after the other girls, so it's possible her design simply had more time "in the oven" so to speak.

And of course, I also bring it up because like Flora's Sophix last week , this also means I ended up using Daphne's Sirenix as my primary inspiration out of the option available. Though this time, I don't think it's super obvious other than maybe in the top.

Also—I opted for both arms to have ribbons/wrapping/whatever that is, same as Daphne. Her's is the only Sirenix like that, and I noticed out of all the Winx, only Tecna's and Stella's ribbons are on their left arms, the rest of the Winx's are on the right.

If you'll indulge me for a moment—I kind of wonder if which arm the ribbons are on is meant to show if the girls are right or left-handed, or ambidextrous in Daphne's case? But I'm not sure you could even check that—There might be things that show a preference if you watch closely, but since this is animation, that's probably not super reliable since I imagine a lot of the time the artists just went with whatever hand was easiest/came to mind first. (Usually the right, because Right-handed Bias is a Thing.)

Anyway. I also noticed all the Sirenixes have the hair in a ponytail, except Tecna's because her's is so short. And for some reason Flora's is the only one with a super loose, low-hanging ponytail. But it is a ponytail nonetheless.

That seems fair to me—having your hair pulled back typically makes swimming a lot easier in real life, why not in animation too? So I leaned into that even further and chose a braid, which is how I'd opt to fix my own hair before swimming.

Likewise, I didn't quite know what to do with the bangs and decided to go with some inspiration from what my hair used to do when I had bangs and I'd go to bed with my hair wet—They'd curl and flip and vaguely resemble a fluffy bird nest in the morning.

Obviously, I didn't take it to quite that extreme. This more of that general idea + the bang style I've been using for Winxsona Winter all along, since that was another thing I noticed—Most of the Sirenix bangs seem to keep a lot of the "spirit" from the girls' more well-known bang styles in various ways.

I will admit though the braid may be a little "too much detail." It's hard to say for sure though because Season 5 sorta started the trend of adding generally more detail to the Winx's hair than I personally think was strictly necessary. I'm willing to let it slide either way though since I'm pretty confident in all the other design elements.

Part of that confidence comes from rectifying two common flaws in my previous Sirenix attempts:
No Mystic, the designs on the leggings are not just random lines—They are intentionally placed patterns
The single more forgotten element of Sirenix as a whole, not just by me but by the fandom at large—The fins. Why are these things so forgettable? I have no idea.

But yes, while not the most elaborate design in the world, I did try to be much more intentional with the legging pattern this time around. If the pose had front-facing legs, you'd see those squiggles peaking around from both sides of the leg and those dots going down the middle, roughly. And you can probably see without too much trouble that the fins are really the same "Mystic Wing" motif I've been using throughout this challenge, though I did go with a sharper point on the top to make them more fin-like.

I did make a couple of very small changes to another common element of Sirenix though—The skirt.

The Sirenix skirts have always been kind of weird. I don't have the energy [or probably time too] to dissect that here today, but in the little pile of wiggly lines you'll notice each Winx has a little section/few "strands" that hang down on one side. I "broke" this rule and decided I wanted two, one on each side, but it's hard to tell between the wings and the background behind the skirt.

In addition to that, again you really can't tell, but I split the skirt into two colors—something that's meant to look like an extension of the top, and then a lighter blue on the bottom half. But the two colors were already kind of close and having all that stuff behind the skirt makes them almost seemingly blend together. [The Sirenix skirts are just a little transparent within their outlines.]

The rest of the design was largely down to observing how the Winx's Sirenixes are colored. [And this is where Daphne's is a little more of an outlier—Her Sirenix almost looks monochrome next to the others.] But instead of boring you with a mini-story for each one, I will simply bullet point my observations instead:
[most obviously] the top is always the fairy's main color [Except for Flora]
the leggings are either the main color or a secondary color [I picked secondary]
while hard to notice, the heels are usually a slightly different shade from the leggings
the legging pattern can be a primary, secondary, or color that blends with the typical secondary color; Sometimes the pattern blends into the leggings, but usually it very distinctly pops
the skirt is usually a primary or secondary color, however...
the skirt can be a more "random" color like Musa's green or Daphne's ultra-pale purple
the arm ribbons are usually a primary or secondary color [Daphne is the exception; I picked secondary]
other accessories such as ones in the hair or the wrists seem to be fair game for any color that is still reasonably cohesive with the others
the fins are fair game for any colors already present elsewhere in the design or wings, but they usually blend with the legging colors in some way

On the flipside...as much as I didn't want them to be, the Wings ends up being kind of random in terms of what colors went where.  There was only one true consistency I noticed between all of them: The outer border is the same color as the leggings. [Well, same type of color, anyway. The exact shade is a little off in some cases.]

The inner "spike" border is usually the girl's other main color that wasn't used for the border [secondary in a lot of cases], but Musa's is randomly orange/gold for some reason.  And you could argue Bloom's is more purple than it is pink, but it is a pink-ish purple so maybe not?

While I'm on those wings—I would like to point out that for wings that have the same general design between fairies, boy are they wildly inconsistent! If you go look up screenshots, even of Daphne in Season 6, you can clearly see the Sirenix wings kind of constantly change overall transparency, if they fade before they touch the fairy's back, their height/position, even their size varies somewhat—A lot of the Sirenix wings look kind of tiny at the end of the transformation sequences.

On the one hand, this takes less pressure off of me to get those things "perfect"...But on the other, it's baffling that the show itself couldn't even decide on what was "ideal." And obviously it bugged me just enough I wanted to point it out so you all can be bugged right alongside me.

Weird wing issues aside, I'm going to circle back around to where you might have assumed I would start this story: The pose.

And I'm telling this part now instead of much earlier because the pose kind of leads into the background.

Originally, I wasn't sure if I was going to go for a full transformation scene like this, or if I was going to go with a background from the show...And then the possibility of doing a "bonus" closer-up piece with the underwater hair color change crossed my mind...So I wanted a pose that could effectively do them all, just in case.

I was torn for a while between a pose from Stella's Nick re-animated Winx [no I will not call it Charmix], and one of Flora actually in her Sirenix [in the middle of combat, not from the transformation], but I realized my two main issues with the Stella pose were the arms and the closed eyes, whereas I had more concerns overall about Flora's. The closed eyes for Stella were easy enough to fix, so I decided to do a little more sketching and see if I could get some arms I liked better.

Thanks to Sirenix Stella [screen left] and Season 2 Layla [screen right]: Yes, yes I could. So I waved goodbye to the Flora pose and went on my merry way.

The thing is while I was trying to decide between the poses, I took a little break and decided to go ahead and make a transformation-style background so that if I did go that route, it would already be done and I wouldn't have to add on more time. And if I didn't, I could hang on to the background—I'm sure it would've come in handy for something else eventually. [Although clearly you can see what I decided in the end.]

I must say—It went more smoothly than I was expecting once I realized the ending backgrounds for the transformation are not the consistent soft blue and pale lines you'll see tossed around pretty freely for Sirenix backgrounds.

The lines are more or less there, just color adjusted to fit the fairy's theme better, but I noticed generally [Daphne notwithstanding] the background in the center/directly behind the first is a color that looks specifically chosen to pop against the main outfit color, and then it fades into something else on the corners—usually something darker, but not always. And sometimes there's an additional texture relating to the fairy's power.

I went with a pale green-tinted yellow for that central color. I was more specifically trying to contrast with the periwinkle, but it occurs to me now that the green undertone contrasts with the hot pink too, so that worked out even better than I thought.

And you can see that I compromised on the additional texture—There is none, but I specifically made the lines form, yet again, the "classic" Mystic Wing shape. This time was a heck of a lot easier than the FairyDust version since it didn't have to be nearly as clean, symmetrical, or concise.

And then I got to go a little crazy with the sparkle and bokeh, which is something I haven't done in a very long time.

By the time I'd mostly finished the actual character part, I was still a little torn but I was leaning more into the transformation background. After some more thought, I reasoned that if I did go ahead with that "bonus" piece I mentioned that I'd be getting in an underwater background anyway, so there was really no reason to let this background go to waste.

Oh, and before I forget—It's also worth mentioning that I had the tiniest bit of extra work taken out for this piece. I did not feel obligated to use my "hard pixel lines first, then smooth them later" technique, because Season 5 and onward were all CG/Flash animated, which means that compared to the first 4 hand-drawn seasons everything looks a little too smooth and fluid. So I could use a "normal" brush that had smooth edges to begin with. Although it's still not as smooth as it could be because I was only working in 300 dpi at a "standard" 1920 x 1080. Either a bigger canvas or higher dpi would've been a bit smoother, but oh well.

I do still think last week's Sophix is still my favorite of the Winxsona pieces, but I'm honestly torn now between if this one or Week 2/Enchantix is in second place—I know, I know, how dare I even suggest Sirenix can so much as touch Enchantix!

Don't get me wrong, Enchantix is still my favorite transformation. I'm talking purely about which of these two art pieces I drew, and right now the competition is pretty stiff; There's a lot to like about each of them...But if I'm being totally honestly with myself, I do think I had more fun drawing this one.

Either way, I'm so glad to have finally made it this far and to be happy with what I've managed to make up until this point.  So now I'm just hoping I can finish this thing strong with the last two...I have finally decided on what they're going to be, I think—we'll see what comes of the concept designs.

In the meantime, you Sparklers might want to keep an eye out for that bonus image I've mentioned twice now. ; I decided not to post it today just so this one would have more breathing room. And also just a warning/reminder for tomorrow—I don't do April Fools' Jokes/Pranks/whatever, and in fact will probably be spending most of the day avoiding the internet specifically to not get duped by one myself.

Stay safe and in good humor, Sparklers!

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings
Winx Club © Rainbow S.p.A.

Sparkle Brushes: Believix Cartoon Sparkle Brush & Enchantix + Season 3 Resource Pack
Wings: Sirenix Wing Base

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | My Book | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | RedBubble |   Mastodon |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

Description
My Website | My Book | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi (Now with Membership Tiers for as little as $1 a Month!) | RedBubble |   Mastodon |  Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

At long last, we come to where I was originally planning to end Winxsona Winter . [Though I'm sure some of you remember that last week I said I'd finally decided, yeah, I will go ahead with Weeks 7 & 8 and really see this thing through ]

Week 6 was sort of a free-choice, "Any Canon Transformation," and I was debating right up until I finished last week's entry which one I was going to pick. Long story as short as possible: The other transformations I was seriously considering were not actually from the Winx Club show, they were from other supplemental media like the Comics...Or I did briefly consider re-visiting the "On Ice" Transformation(?) you all saw me take on back in November , but that one specifically got taken out of the running because how Canon it is and whether it was ever supposed to be a proper Transformation or not is highly up in the air.

In the end, Sirenix won out of a combination of personal preference [of the in-show Transformations that haven't already been covered in Winxsona Winter, it's probably my favorite], how easy I thought it would be to break down the design, and how readily I know fan-made resources are available for it. [...Though to be fair, that ended up really just meaning I didn't have to draw another set of wings from scratch in this case, since I aim for the in-show style and not the more detailed promo-art style. There was a handful of resources I thought I might use going in that I ended up skipping entirely.]

Now, allow me to explore a tangent for a minute about Sirenix's fandom perception vs. my own feelings. You can skip this by scrolling until you see  if you really don't care and just want to hear about the art process.

Most Winx veterans already know this, but in case you don't: Sirenix does not have a great reputation in the fanbase. "I hate the design," "It's not unique enough to each Winx," "Why didn't they go full-mermaid with it instead?" "Harmonix was better—why did they replace it with this??" etc. All common complaints you'll hear about why Sirenix is The Worst™.

[At least before the Season 8 redesign, it seems like people generally like that version better, but stick a pin in that, we'll come back to it.]

I had to go back and check previous Sirenix drawings I've made , and I even went so far as to find a journal that Kid-Me posted when we first saw Sirenix in the show...Because I was having a hard time remembering how I felt about Sirenix when it first hit the scene. I thought I remembered liking it, but after *checks notes* over ten years  (!!!) of listening to the rest of the fandom bemoan how much they hate Sirenix, and knowing even I do not have the most positive feelings towards Season 5 as a whole [lots of interesting ideas, lots of not-great execution of those ideas], I really couldn't remember. Did I like Sirenix at first, or did I hate like everyone else seems to and I'm giving past-me too much credit?

As it turns out, I was remembering correctly: It seems past-me did in fact like Sirenix, I'm not just projecting my modern feelings onto a rocky past to try and smooth things over. Good!

Why does that matter? Well, I think it speaks a lot to how vocal the fandom at large has been in its distaste for Sirenix...And more subtly, how easy it can be to get roped into the Sirenix Hate Bandwagon if you already have problems with Season 5, which most of the fandom does.

I could go much deeper into this than even that—Sirenix is kind of an interesting case study when you start to break down the design elements, and I'll touch on some of that in a minute when we get to the art itself—but for now, I just want to ask that if you yourself are historically Not A Fan of Sirenix, that for a moment you re-consider: Is it possible some of your dislike of the design is misplaced, and has more to do with what Season 5 as a whole represents?

...Honestly, I'm considering making a "We were too hard on Sirenix" post of some kind [maybe my first foray into a Youtube video with voice-over?] because I think there's so much more to discuss, but I'm going to try and put the lid on the rabbit hole and get back to the art for today...

This is not going to sound like I'm moving on, but it is relevant: I will admit I'm not as crazy about 2D Sirenix , as I've clearly drawn here, vs. the 3D version that was actually our first exposure to it.

But say it with me: I didn't have time to re-learn the Winx style but in 3D if I wanted to get this piece out anytime soon compared to when the last one went up. So I made my peace with that fact and moved on with life. [There is a small chance we'll revisit that idea in the future though, since many years ago I was brave enough to try the 3D Winx Style multiple times and it would very interesting to see how my improved art skills in that time are likely to make fresh attempts look infinitely better.]

That said, in studying screenshots to prepare [as I always do], I pretty quickly found that Daphne's Sirenix is probably my favorite...And then I was promptly kind of surprised [borderline appalled] to learn/remember that we never actually see Daphne's Sirenix in 3D.

I bring this up because I think it speaks to the idea that the Winx's Sirenixes were designed for the 3D version first, and 2D later, which probably has something to do with why I personally prefer the 3D version. Daphne's, on the other hand, seems like it may have been designed as 2D from the beginning without 3D in mind, so hers generally looks different [better?] compared to the other girls. And, to be fair, we also don't see Daphne's until Season 6, after the other girls, so it's possible her design simply had more time "in the oven" so to speak.

And of course, I also bring it up because like Flora's Sophix last week , this also means I ended up using Daphne's Sirenix as my primary inspiration out of the option available. Though this time, I don't think it's super obvious other than maybe in the top.

Also—I opted for both arms to have ribbons/wrapping/whatever that is, same as Daphne. Her's is the only Sirenix like that, and I noticed out of all the Winx, only Tecna's and Stella's ribbons are on their left arms, the rest of the Winx's are on the right.

If you'll indulge me for a moment—I kind of wonder if which arm the ribbons are on is meant to show if the girls are right or left-handed, or ambidextrous in Daphne's case? But I'm not sure you could even check that—There might be things that show a preference if you watch closely, but since this is animation, that's probably not super reliable since I imagine a lot of the time the artists just went with whatever hand was easiest/came to mind first. (Usually the right, because Right-handed Bias is a Thing.)

Anyway. I also noticed all the Sirenixes have the hair in a ponytail, except Tecna's because her's is so short. And for some reason Flora's is the only one with a super loose, low-hanging ponytail. But it is a ponytail nonetheless.

That seems fair to me—having your hair pulled back typically makes swimming a lot easier in real life, why not in animation too? So I leaned into that even further and chose a braid, which is how I'd opt to fix my own hair before swimming.

Likewise, I didn't quite know what to do with the bangs and decided to go with some inspiration from what my hair used to do when I had bangs and I'd go to bed with my hair wet—They'd curl and flip and vaguely resemble a fluffy bird nest in the morning.

Obviously, I didn't take it to quite that extreme. This more of that general idea + the bang style I've been using for Winxsona Winter all along, since that was another thing I noticed—Most of the Sirenix bangs seem to keep a lot of the "spirit" from the girls' more well-known bang styles in various ways.

I will admit though the braid may be a little "too much detail." It's hard to say for sure though because Season 5 sorta started the trend of adding generally more detail to the Winx's hair than I personally think was strictly necessary. I'm willing to let it slide either way though since I'm pretty confident in all the other design elements.

Part of that confidence comes from rectifying two common flaws in my previous Sirenix attempts:
No Mystic, the designs on the leggings are not just random lines—They are intentionally placed patterns
The single more forgotten element of Sirenix as a whole, not just by me but by the fandom at large—The fins. Why are these things so forgettable? I have no idea.

But yes, while not the most elaborate design in the world, I did try to be much more intentional with the legging pattern this time around. If the pose had front-facing legs, you'd see those squiggles peaking around from both sides of the leg and those dots going down the middle, roughly. And you can probably see without too much trouble that the fins are really the same "Mystic Wing" motif I've been using throughout this challenge, though I did go with a sharper point on the top to make them more fin-like.

I did make a couple of very small changes to another common element of Sirenix though—The skirt.

The Sirenix skirts have always been kind of weird. I don't have the energy [or probably time too] to dissect that here today, but in the little pile of wiggly lines you'll notice each Winx has a little section/few "strands" that hang down on one side. I "broke" this rule and decided I wanted two, one on each side, but it's hard to tell between the wings and the background behind the skirt.

In addition to that, again you really can't tell, but I split the skirt into two colors—something that's meant to look like an extension of the top, and then a lighter blue on the bottom half. But the two colors were already kind of close and having all that stuff behind the skirt makes them almost seemingly blend together. [The Sirenix skirts are just a little transparent within their outlines.]

The rest of the design was largely down to observing how the Winx's Sirenixes are colored. [And this is where Daphne's is a little more of an outlier—Her Sirenix almost looks monochrome next to the others.] But instead of boring you with a mini-story for each one, I will simply bullet point my observations instead:
[most obviously] the top is always the fairy's main color [Except for Flora]
the leggings are either the main color or a secondary color [I picked secondary]
while hard to notice, the heels are usually a slightly different shade from the leggings
the legging pattern can be a primary, secondary, or color that blends with the typical secondary color; Sometimes the pattern blends into the leggings, but usually it very distinctly pops
the skirt is usually a primary or secondary color, however...
the skirt can be a more "random" color like Musa's green or Daphne's ultra-pale purple
the arm ribbons are usually a primary or secondary color [Daphne is the exception; I picked secondary]
other accessories such as ones in the hair or the wrists seem to be fair game for any color that is still reasonably cohesive with the others
the fins are fair game for any colors already present elsewhere in the design or wings, but they usually blend with the legging colors in some way

On the flipside...as much as I didn't want them to be, the Wings ends up being kind of random in terms of what colors went where.  There was only one true consistency I noticed between all of them: The outer border is the same color as the leggings. [Well, same type of color, anyway. The exact shade is a little off in some cases.]

The inner "spike" border is usually the girl's other main color that wasn't used for the border [secondary in a lot of cases], but Musa's is randomly orange/gold for some reason.  And you could argue Bloom's is more purple than it is pink, but it is a pink-ish purple so maybe not?

While I'm on those wings—I would like to point out that for wings that have the same general design between fairies, boy are they wildly inconsistent! If you go look up screenshots, even of Daphne in Season 6, you can clearly see the Sirenix wings kind of constantly change overall transparency, if they fade before they touch the fairy's back, their height/position, even their size varies somewhat—A lot of the Sirenix wings look kind of tiny at the end of the transformation sequences.

On the one hand, this takes less pressure off of me to get those things "perfect"...But on the other, it's baffling that the show itself couldn't even decide on what was "ideal." And obviously it bugged me just enough I wanted to point it out so you all can be bugged right alongside me.

Weird wing issues aside, I'm going to circle back around to where you might have assumed I would start this story: The pose.

And I'm telling this part now instead of much earlier because the pose kind of leads into the background.

Originally, I wasn't sure if I was going to go for a full transformation scene like this, or if I was going to go with a background from the show...And then the possibility of doing a "bonus" closer-up piece with the underwater hair color change crossed my mind...So I wanted a pose that could effectively do them all, just in case.

I was torn for a while between a pose from Stella's Nick re-animated Winx [no I will not call it Charmix], and one of Flora actually in her Sirenix [in the middle of combat, not from the transformation], but I realized my two main issues with the Stella pose were the arms and the closed eyes, whereas I had more concerns overall about Flora's. The closed eyes for Stella were easy enough to fix, so I decided to do a little more sketching and see if I could get some arms I liked better.

Thanks to Sirenix Stella [screen left] and Season 2 Layla [screen right]: Yes, yes I could. So I waved goodbye to the Flora pose and went on my merry way.

The thing is while I was trying to decide between the poses, I took a little break and decided to go ahead and make a transformation-style background so that if I did go that route, it would already be done and I wouldn't have to add on more time. And if I didn't, I could hang on to the background—I'm sure it would've come in handy for something else eventually. [Although clearly you can see what I decided in the end.]

I must say—It went more smoothly than I was expecting once I realized the ending backgrounds for the transformation are not the consistent soft blue and pale lines you'll see tossed around pretty freely for Sirenix backgrounds.

The lines are more or less there, just color adjusted to fit the fairy's theme better, but I noticed generally [Daphne notwithstanding] the background in the center/directly behind the first is a color that looks specifically chosen to pop against the main outfit color, and then it fades into something else on the corners—usually something darker, but not always. And sometimes there's an additional texture relating to the fairy's power.

I went with a pale green-tinted yellow for that central color. I was more specifically trying to contrast with the periwinkle, but it occurs to me now that the green undertone contrasts with the hot pink too, so that worked out even better than I thought.

And you can see that I compromised on the additional texture—There is none, but I specifically made the lines form, yet again, the "classic" Mystic Wing shape. This time was a heck of a lot easier than the FairyDust version since it didn't have to be nearly as clean, symmetrical, or concise.

And then I got to go a little crazy with the sparkle and bokeh, which is something I haven't done in a very long time.

By the time I'd mostly finished the actual character part, I was still a little torn but I was leaning more into the transformation background. After some more thought, I reasoned that if I did go ahead with that "bonus" piece I mentioned that I'd be getting in an underwater background anyway, so there was really no reason to let this background go to waste.

Oh, and before I forget—It's also worth mentioning that I had the tiniest bit of extra work taken out for this piece. I did not feel obligated to use my "hard pixel lines first, then smooth them later" technique, because Season 5 and onward were all CG/Flash animated, which means that compared to the first 4 hand-drawn seasons everything looks a little too smooth and fluid. So I could use a "normal" brush that had smooth edges to begin with. Although it's still not as smooth as it could be because I was only working in 300 dpi at a "standard" 1920 x 1080. Either a bigger canvas or higher dpi would've been a bit smoother, but oh well.

I do still think last week's Sophix is still my favorite of the Winxsona pieces, but I'm honestly torn now between if this one or Week 2/Enchantix is in second place—I know, I know, how dare I even suggest Sirenix can so much as touch Enchantix!

Don't get me wrong, Enchantix is still my favorite transformation. I'm talking purely about which of these two art pieces I drew, and right now the competition is pretty stiff; There's a lot to like about each of them...But if I'm being totally honestly with myself, I do think I had more fun drawing this one.

Either way, I'm so glad to have finally made it this far and to be happy with what I've managed to make up until this point.  So now I'm just hoping I can finish this thing strong with the last two...I have finally decided on what they're going to be, I think—we'll see what comes of the concept designs.

In the meantime, you Sparklers might want to keep an eye out for that bonus image I've mentioned twice now. ; I decided not to post it today just so this one would have more breathing room. And also just a warning/reminder for tomorrow—I don't do April Fools' Jokes/Pranks/whatever, and in fact will probably be spending most of the day avoiding the internet specifically to not get duped by one myself.

Stay safe and in good humor, Sparklers!

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings
Winx Club © Rainbow S.p.A.

Sparkle Brushes: Believix Cartoon Sparkle Brush & Enchantix + Season 3 Resource Pack
Wings: Sirenix Wing Base

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