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WARNING: HUGE FILE APPROACHING.

The third and final chapter of this saga:

[link]
[link]

Do remember to comment if you read this whole thing. I'll try to make this short, but there's a lot I want to mention....

First off. I spent over twelve hours on this thing. Twelve hours. And that was doing what I consider a low-quality job...no real shading, simple background, and all that....but I paid attention to certain things. A lot of images used references, but some of the better ones were actually non-reffed.

Let's move on to the artist's commentary, panel-by-panel:

1. I reffed Mai for this one, as is probably obvious, and just made a few minor tweaks....but she impressed me here. Something about the way her ribbons are drooping, too....
2. *peek*. 'nuff said. I like the pacing of this panel.
3. It was so hard deciding what Mai was going to be "saying." In the end, I settled on that...still not entirely happy....oh, she's probably just terrified at this strange person who has popped in, because that sure isn't Zuko. I don't think so, anyway. Maybe the turtleduck attack was worse than I thought (I apologize for the obvious lack of injury).
4. Thank goodness Katara showed us her crush on Aang in "The Headband," because it made a fine reference. Zuko was all freehand. ^_^
5. I think ideal pacing would have been to have this one spread over two panels, but it worked out well enough. The wordless setup kept bugging me, though, because it clearly looked like he started making excuses in the NEXT panel....
6. Yep. Just "bear." I would have given him a Pinocchio nose, but that would be going a little far.
7. Again, I would have liked Zuko to ramble a little more, but I do like how Mai subtly passed the box from one hand to the other. And, again, her dialogue killed me there....her excuses and Zuko's ramblings are easy, but simple one-liners are killer.
8. Bwahahaha. This panel was actually almost last-minute. I originally wanted to have it just end with him sitting next to her and sharing the chocolates in a cute way, but I couldn't work it out...then I had the idea for a "reflecting back" ending (cheesy, but I think it worked), and the turtleduck slipped his way in there by default. And if you haven't worked out the clues yet, he's one diabolical mastermind of a shipping turtleduck. Mai and Zuko's legs gave me no end of difficulty in this panel, too, so that's why they're not there.

I'll leave the rest to the viewer to work out.

Come on, how can you resist a girl petting a turtleduck on her lap? Toph was a helpful reference for that, her and Momo....

I'll probably touch up a few panels and make them their own pictures. The first and the last are the major probable ones.

And the true irony here is, I had no intentions of doing a Valentine's Day pic. Then I did that first Mai one....which led to the inspiration of a sequel, and this. Actually, this one preceded the sequel--I wanted Zuko to just flop down next to Mai on a bench after Azula stole his candy, but then I decided to go with the comic idea, and then went to this. So, yeah. Story of my life over the past few days. On-and-off, except for today, which was a full five-hour streak. I have tears in my eyes because I've been staring at this screen for so long.

So, yeah, MS Paint for the win.

Oh, and unless there's something that's REALLY bugging you (which means that it's probably going to bug me, too), I'll be leaving this mostly as it is. It was rough sketches that worked their way out of my control. And I have more important pics to draw. Probably featuring Combustion Man.

Mai and Zuko belong to Viacom, Nickelodeon, Mike, and Bryan. And each other.
I can't speak for the turtleduck, though.
The pic is mine!

See what you can do with Maiko if you let your imagination work?

Comments would be very, very nice.

Description
WARNING: HUGE FILE APPROACHING.

The third and final chapter of this saga:

[link]
[link]

Do remember to comment if you read this whole thing. I'll try to make this short, but there's a lot I want to mention....

First off. I spent over twelve hours on this thing. Twelve hours. And that was doing what I consider a low-quality job...no real shading, simple background, and all that....but I paid attention to certain things. A lot of images used references, but some of the better ones were actually non-reffed.

Let's move on to the artist's commentary, panel-by-panel:

1. I reffed Mai for this one, as is probably obvious, and just made a few minor tweaks....but she impressed me here. Something about the way her ribbons are drooping, too....
2. *peek*. 'nuff said. I like the pacing of this panel.
3. It was so hard deciding what Mai was going to be "saying." In the end, I settled on that...still not entirely happy....oh, she's probably just terrified at this strange person who has popped in, because that sure isn't Zuko. I don't think so, anyway. Maybe the turtleduck attack was worse than I thought (I apologize for the obvious lack of injury).
4. Thank goodness Katara showed us her crush on Aang in "The Headband," because it made a fine reference. Zuko was all freehand. ^_^
5. I think ideal pacing would have been to have this one spread over two panels, but it worked out well enough. The wordless setup kept bugging me, though, because it clearly looked like he started making excuses in the NEXT panel....
6. Yep. Just "bear." I would have given him a Pinocchio nose, but that would be going a little far.
7. Again, I would have liked Zuko to ramble a little more, but I do like how Mai subtly passed the box from one hand to the other. And, again, her dialogue killed me there....her excuses and Zuko's ramblings are easy, but simple one-liners are killer.
8. Bwahahaha. This panel was actually almost last-minute. I originally wanted to have it just end with him sitting next to her and sharing the chocolates in a cute way, but I couldn't work it out...then I had the idea for a "reflecting back" ending (cheesy, but I think it worked), and the turtleduck slipped his way in there by default. And if you haven't worked out the clues yet, he's one diabolical mastermind of a shipping turtleduck. Mai and Zuko's legs gave me no end of difficulty in this panel, too, so that's why they're not there.

I'll leave the rest to the viewer to work out.

Come on, how can you resist a girl petting a turtleduck on her lap? Toph was a helpful reference for that, her and Momo....

I'll probably touch up a few panels and make them their own pictures. The first and the last are the major probable ones.

And the true irony here is, I had no intentions of doing a Valentine's Day pic. Then I did that first Mai one....which led to the inspiration of a sequel, and this. Actually, this one preceded the sequel--I wanted Zuko to just flop down next to Mai on a bench after Azula stole his candy, but then I decided to go with the comic idea, and then went to this. So, yeah. Story of my life over the past few days. On-and-off, except for today, which was a full five-hour streak. I have tears in my eyes because I've been staring at this screen for so long.

So, yeah, MS Paint for the win.

Oh, and unless there's something that's REALLY bugging you (which means that it's probably going to bug me, too), I'll be leaving this mostly as it is. It was rough sketches that worked their way out of my control. And I have more important pics to draw. Probably featuring Combustion Man.

Mai and Zuko belong to Viacom, Nickelodeon, Mike, and Bryan. And each other.
I can't speak for the turtleduck, though.
The pic is mine!

See what you can do with Maiko if you let your imagination work?

Comments would be very, very nice.