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 It's Suho's 26th Birthday :D Well, it's been his birthday for several hours now, but it's officially his birthday in my time zone. Suho is (currently?) my favorite idol. Probably the one I've become the most fond of in my entire career of stanning. Obviously as an idol, he's not someone I know personally, but I can say that what he does show of himself, what he shares of himself... It makes me so happy that he chose to debut as an idol, even though he went through so many hardships and even though other paths certainly opened up to him. I can't say I love him -- not seriously, not with all of my heart, not person-to-person -- but I can say that I truly respect him from the bottom of my heart. For his earnest side, for his sense of responsibility and decency, for his hard-working nature, for the way he manages to make being an idol something he can enjoy. I wish nothing but the best for him, even if one day I no longer follow k-pop. 

I was really lucky actually. One of my friends gave me the opportunity to send him a fan letter. He won't ever see this art, but hopefully he gets to read my words and get even a hint of how much admiration I feel for him! 

Notes about the fanart: it's based off of his outfit during the second day of Exo's May 2016 Japanese fanmeets. He wore a flower crown and I was so charmed ;; Though I didn't bother with the backpack because it was already hard enough situating his arms haha. I also didn't bother much with shading because I was pressed for time /o\ The background is made with a brush of his face, haha, inspired by a Chat Noir art I saw a few months back... And I actually uploaded this on twitter first and realized I forgot to add a drop shadow so that he stood out more from the background, and also so the white flowers on the ends of the flower crown would stand out from the background. Oops. Not too many people would see this anyway haha, it's more for my satisfaction.

So. Preface. These are being posted about a year late, mainly because by the time I was getting around to posting them, Lu Han left Exo (and now, more recently, Tao) and I have... very strong feelings about betraydols and was quite reluctant to post anything relating to them, even previous work. But I want to post this year's summer event submissions and it wouldn't feel right skipping over all of the stuff I made for EM's 2014 World Cup competition. So here we go lol. The following notes are from last year.

Long story short, EM ran a second summer fanworks competition, this time modeled around the World Cup rather than the Hunger Games again. I didn't submit as much as last time I think, but I still totaled about 25 works? Pretty decent. It's a pity that Xiumin couldn't get to the finals, but he made it to 4th place! One place higher than the year before, and that was my endgoal anyway lol. Good job, me and the rest of the team. Who I don't know since I didn't unanon and I didn't have Kit helping me out this time.

Anyway. I had fun trying out new art techniques this time around -- I only did stuff on photoshop this time, compared to traditional media last year \o/ -- and I actually wrote stuff? For the first time in months. I'm amazed, though I don't feel so great about most of what I wrote. What is characterization, besides the bane of my existence lol. But at least I got to flesh out some ideas, including ones that had been tumbling in my head uselessly for a while.

Fics and free kicks will be posted separately, the fics so that I can edit or continue them as I want and the free kicks so they'll all be in one place lol. This will just be art and vocaroos. I'm probably gonna reupload the vocaroos on my soundcloud or my evernote since they eventually expire, as I found out from my HG!AU ones.... ugh life is such a struggle.


PRELIMS:

Title: Wavin' Flag song edit
Link: Soundcloud
Original Post: Here
Lyrics: 
Notes: A cover of the 2010 Fifa World Cup song "Wavin' Flag" with the lyrics changed to suit WCAU. It's mainly because we had been given such a long time gap between finding out about the event and the actual start of it that I managed to get this done. It was fun making fun of the scoring system and the wank a bit lol. Also the fifth place bit refers to how Xiumin finished in fifth for HGAU... did better this time around lol


Title: Runaway song edit
Link: Soundcloud
Original Post: Here
Lyrics:
Notes: A cover of SHINee's Runaway, again with lyrics changed to reflect the situation in WCAU. Prelims were mainly a period where the team with the highest number of points would get a walk -- exemption from the first round. No one was gonna be eliminated, so it was a huge waste of points if you didn't win it so this was a call to fellow Team Xiumin members to give up on prelims so we could start stocking up for Round 1 proper. Definitely had fun working on this in the car lol




ROUND 1: 

Title: Futsal Fanart

Original Post: Here
Notes: The first post of Round 1! I tried to make posting first my thing throughout the competition lol, lots of fun. Xiumin's appearance is based off of what he wore for one of the futsal competitions for ISAC, though I had to change him from Team A to Team B due to a last-minute team shuffle. It was my first time trying an outline other than black so I could have a warmer feel to him lol also, originally it was gonna just be a chibi but then I thought since i had the time, why not try a background? Also the grass hides his bad feet, haha. The flags were team flags made and chosen before the games even started lol, ironically, I was the one who designed the Team Suho flag. 


Title: Yowapetao

Original Post: Here
Notes: Originally I made this because Xiumin and Tao were gonna be on the same team, but then there was a reshuffle and they ended up on opposing teams. It was also because Boss loves/loved Tao and Yowapedal. No other other comments really since my feelings since have soured on him.


Title: Waving Flag and Fifa Trophy animation

Original Post: Here
Notes: THIS ONE WAS SO HARD. I had to use a series of screenshots from Hetalia as a reference for the flag waving and coloring the moving frames and actually animating it took so long I wanted to die lol. In the end I realy liked how it came out though! Xiumin's outfit is based off of what he had worn at an airport recently, but I changed the letter on his shirt to read B for Team B. Open in a new tab to see the pic full-sized lol. 


Title: Take a Bite at First Place Tonight (Animal Cover)
Link: Soundcloud
Original Post: Here

So, EM was having "12 days of oppars" or a "December of Exo" or whatever the heck it was, and Tao day was... earlier this week? Last week? I actually started on Tao day and it ended up taking a little over 24 hours to finish given that I had work and stuff. And even then I didn't properly finish. There's not much shading or highlighting, so it's pretty flat. The unfortunate thing is that I accidentally saved the flattened image, so I can't go between layers and stuff. Might as well leave it as it is lol 

Anyway, In the end I didn't make it in time. I doubt I would have posted anyway lol, I haven't done so in a long time. It was still a good chance to practice coloring in a new style, based off of this tutorial I found on tumblr where you color the base first and add lines/details later. It was an interesting practice. The art itself was based off of a series of pictures like this, when chinaline were flying back to China for an awards show. Congrats again to Exo for winning, I guess. So many wins this year. Whooo. All colors were lifted directly from Tao pics, although it was hard to find any that weren't filtered so his skin looked lighter u__u I think I got a good tone on him though, but I wish I could have made his hair look nicer. The pattern on the scarf was lifted from a generic knit pattern that I googled tbh, but everything else was me lol

In the end it was fun. I was happy enough with the outcome that I ended up printing it out and gluing it to a letter that I gave Boss when I met up with her a couple of days ago. Hopefully she liked it, even though my printer ruined the color u__u

I'm finally done with the Round 1 post! orz omg, that was so tiring lol, but thankfully I made a lot less for Rounds 2 and 2.5 and I only wrote one thing for Round 3 so less work. Originally I was gonna try to do Wreck-It Ralph/Sugar Rush-esque racing characters for Round 3, and I even looked up concept art and fanart and started working on getting the style down and designing their go-karts, but in the end... I had work all week and couldn't get to it. What a disappointment. In the end, Xiumin ended up being eliminated, but I can't say I didn't try my best for him. :'3

Round 2:

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And then finally a toop I made!

Notes: I actually tested it out here before I posted :3 The letters alternate between gifs and jpgs lol



Round 2.5:

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