OSI: Noble Gown

Round 6: Noble Gown for

Qualification: [link]
Top 35: [link]
Top 25: [link]
Top 18: [link]
Top 12: [link]
Top 10: [link]
Top 6: [link]
Top 5: [link]
Top 4: [link]
Top 3: [link]




Reason for Dress
Stepping out of the stuffy gathering hall Lady Lucillia stretched briefly before she started down the long marble hallway. All was silent except for the sound of the dress trailing behind her and the soft clicking of her shoes. Sighing she gave a soft tug at the back of the dress, before she continued walking.

"Stupid thing. Why must the trail be so long?" she inquired to nobody in particular. Continuing her journey down the hallway, Lucillia's thoughts drifted back to the meeting that just ended. "So our relations with the Moon Kingdom are starting to weaken, huh? I wonder if..." her thoughts were quickly cut short as she found herself in the garden. Looking around she spotted a free bench and decided to sit down for a short break. It was oddly quiet for this time of day, but it was the nice kind of quiet. Closing her eyes Lucillia allowed a small smile to grace her features as the sun's warm rays surrounded her.

"Soooooo, what cha' thinkin' about?" a soft voice whispered. Letting out a startled yelp, Lucillia placed a hand over her racing heart and turned around to see one of her knights grinning with his hands clasped together over something.

"Isara! Please don't do that again." the man smiled and nodded slightly.

"I'll try not to, but no promises." a soft giggle sounded from her as she smiled brightly.

"By the way where is-"

"I'm right here." a deep feminine voice drifted in from her left. Turning they were both greeted with the sight of Isara's partner and Lucillia's second appointed knight; Arina. "Has he been a bother?" Isara gave a huff as Lucilla giggled.

"Of course not. By the way Isara, what is that in your hands?"

"Oh this? I saw it just floating by and since they're rare I wanted to show you." opening his hands the most beautiful butterfly stood calmly and fluttered it's wings, almost as if it was blissfully unaware of it's surroundings.

"Is that a scarlet dreamer?" she inquired reaching out to lightly touch it's wings. "You can only see these once a decade if you're lucky! They only breed once every few years, and it takes the longest of time for them to fully mature!"

"And do you know why they call them that?" Arina asked as if testing her knowledge, nodding eagerly the princess responded.

"Because when they fully mature their wings go from magenta to a deep scarlet. This one is in the middle of its change, the wings haven't changed completely but you can see the red coming though."

"In a just a few months this beauty will be fully matured, maybe then it'll come back to visit." the butterfly started to flap its wings and flew away into the clear sky. The red becoming visible just for a moment, the enchanting red hue seemed to make the butterfly glow.

"You know what they say, if you love something,"

"Let it go, and if it comes back,"

"It's yours to keep, if not,"

"Then it never was in the first place."

Watching a butterfly flutter aimlessly around outside her window Lumina smiled before standing up from her desk. Looking out of the window again she closed her eyes and ran over the memory once more. Grabbing a light jacket off her chair Lumina ran out of her room, her steps bouncing slightly. "I think I want to go to the park today."

About the Dress
Given the fact that in her past life Lumina was a princess all day every day, fancy dresses are nothing new to her. They are just a part of everyday life. She has no real preference on the appearance of the dress, however one element that is always present is a place in the center of the chest where her brooch is attached. It is a tradition that all members of the royal family wear one item of importance that carries the planetary symbol, whether they were a senshi/knight or not. But the one dress that is well known to everyone is her primary gown. This gown is more commonly worn for official meetings and galas. Because of the long trail it isn't very suitable for everyday use and is often reserved for important appearances, most of them public ones. Otherwise she switches in between her many, many other dresses.

And true to Azarian traditional fashion, she wears a lot of metal ornaments and jewelry formed from twisted silver. Azaria was known to have surplus supplies of precious metals, and Azarians liked to form pieces of beautiful jewelry out of their natural resource. The fabric is light and breathable allowing her ease of movement in her routine activities.

Lumina present day on the other-hand doesn't wear dresses often. She normally only wears them when her family is invited to a social event. She also often likes to play the piano at such events, mainly because it gives her a chance to not have to deal with stuck-up socialites. So nice classy dresses are a part of her social event wardrobe, but whatever she wears now pales in comparison with her past life's gowns.

About the Art
Eeeek! This is the round that I have been super excited to do since the beginning of this competition. This is the debut of Lumina's official royal gown and the introduction of her two knights in their formal uniforms. Yes lots of detailing and items to colour, but it was really fun. I love doing lots of details on gowns and jewelry and this was just the perfect round for me. I love every single detail I put into their clothing and oddly I find doing details kind of relaxing. I wanted the three of them to have commonalities between their clothes; therefore all three have similar patterns on their clothes.

I also really like how the poses turned out and it looks rather relaxed, I consider Arina's pose relaxed because that is how I stand naturally quite often and I find it comfortable. The background looks okay and the clouds look fluffy But the bench that Lumina is sitting on looks like its just randomly there, maybe that should've been moved......

As for the write up you guys can obviously see that I'm trying something different with this round since it seems like everyone but me has done like an actual story for a portion of the write up. So upon taking on some advice from a judge I decided to jump into the bandwagon. I really wanted to show Lumina's more relaxed side with this entry so I went with a more casual and soft scene. I was playing around with creating some effects with simple tools that were available and I do love the softness of the picture. Isara's hair is subject to change in the future since I'm not too happy with how it looks but we'll see if I grow to like it. But all in all I actually really like this picture and I couldn't be happier with it. I think this would be a good round to stop at, but we'll have to wait for scores first. And I won't mind it if I get eliminated since I think I've shown a lot if improvement since the beginning. And finally summer is here! Which means more art and I am excited about finally working on the pictures that I owe people.

Character (c) *Ayachi-chan

Sailor Moon (c) Naoko Takeuchi

Brushes by *redheadstock and ~surfing-ant