Would you be my Valentine?

This one may be the most time consuming piece I've ever done :p (and I don't think that I'll do it again, I had started to hate it in the end ^^)
This is part of a serie I'm doing with my best friend about celebrations (Christmas, Valentine's day, etc....), this is actually the first painting of the serie. She's doing the 2nd one, then I'll do the 3rd, etc...

It's about some persons who can harm people who love them then and being lonely and cold, searching for a heart to take, blinded by they feelings, trying to "hunt" for a "love prey"... Dunno if it's very clear...

The tree is a human hearts tree (that may be a little bit erm... gross, I don't know... I just felt like painting real hearts so here's the result ^^).
The peacock feathers symbolise pride and also bad luck. The eyes... well, she's blind ^^
The snow leopard is meant to symbolise her "hunter" behaviour (now blind aswell), the fact that she's sitting on a tree is meant to represent how lonely she feels (and it's also a nice place to search for hearts, remember )

I know that she's breathing against the wind, but making breath right looked wrong so I'm gonna call this thingie "artistic freedom".
The lighting is typical flat snowy weather lighting so there's not a lot of volume.

Photoshop CS and my beloved wacom
50 hours approx.
Ref used for the body and I've taken a look at some snow leopard shots (google is my friend!) to remember how they look like.
No refs for the fabric so it's totally off but I don't really care since this image is not intended to be realistic (I've never seen a heart tree )
I don't know what else to say... I hope you'll enjoy this image, feel free to crit :)
Thanks for viewing!
Thanks a lot to everybody who has helped me in the WIP thread :)

I definately have an issue with web optimised jpg.... it destroys the colourscheme, contrast and volume :( My painting looks flaaaaat (it had not a lot of volume due to the dull lighting, but the jpg version is totally flat!)


WIP thread : http://www.gfxartist.com/community/forum/141671
Reference : http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/5235/refvs8.jpg
Closeups : http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/162/closeupsee5.jpg
Another version (colder one) : http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/8571/valentinegreyfullow8.jpg

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• Submitted:Jul 26th, 2007
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