2014/2/5
Yay for another old stuff ヽ(　＝＿＝)ﾉ ... sometimes I wish for DA to also have manga-type (multiple page) submission system like pixiv. This type of work is also very confusing to be submitted to a group (folder). It's not fanart, since it's official. Worse, it's the first picture of the character ever made. In a sense it would be original character, but it's not mine by copyright ... In case you don't know, which is actually still quite likely, the character was designed for Danny Choo of Culture Japan.

If you're following Danny Choo, you might've seen the middle part before. If you're keen you may notice her eyes is of a little different design. Danny wasn't particularly keen on "dot" eyes (think Kantoku). This character was born accidentally when he wanted me to design Kizuna (to be uploaded here next week or so) when I sketched out few faces and ended up putting one ... a lil too different from the brief with the kind of attitude I'd probably like from a character. He put the sketches on FB for a vote and that one ended up grabbing the top spot - so he pushed for the winning sketch to be a different new character. This was how I ended up designing 2 characters instead of just the planned 1.

There's an interesting story on the origin of her name. "白澤" (Shirasawa) came from Danny. I think it came to him from another person but my memory is fuzzy on that side. You can actually read it hakutaku (a kind of mythical creature) which I think is kind of cool - and easy to be used as a pattern for mech or something. "千歳" (Chitose) actually came from my then-still-flatmate. He's better in Japanese than me, especially on names and kanji. It literally means 1000 years, and thus millennium, so it connects back to the IP name Mirai Millennium - half a joke. Nevertheless, my friend was in quite a bit of stress that time, company problems and lotsa other stuff. I figured out maybe it can cheer him a bit or at least amuse him if this character got the name he jokingly suggested. So, I pushed for the name to Danny. He actually never knew where the name came from, he just thought I liked the name, and luckily it passed - almost failed though.

I knew that during that time the name "Chitose" in Yuru Yuri refers to a similarly white short haired character. If Danny knew such character existed, I'm pretty sure the name would never pass. If she wasn't named Chitose, she would've gotten Shizuku instead. To think about it Omamori Himari's Shizuku sort of got similar hair, and "close enough" personality (compared to the rest at least :P ). The said flatmate btw, more amused on the act of me pushing the name XD. He had since moved from Singapore to Canada and seems to be leading a better life now, so it's good for him :)

Unless you visited my pixiv you would probably never saw the portrait shot on the left before. I drew it originally for my skype and pixiv avatar. Same goes for the scribbles on the right. Sorry about the Jap texts which are probably broken Jap anyway. Those are for pixiv consumption and I'm just too lazy to modify it to English m(_ _)m.