This, my friends, is a true example of a miko's dedication. I mean, who else do you know would think so highly of Jamil that they would go and draw a fully realistic portrait of him?

Seriously though, several hours over five days were put into this labor of love, and it shows in all the painstaking details. But actually, it almost ended up becoming an absolute disaster. When I first attempted to do this, I had to completely scrap it and start over because the proportions and placement were so off that I couldn't rework a whole day's worth of my mistakes (which doesn't count in my five days of work). I'm really glad I decided to start over though, because this second attempt is absolute perfection. I'm sure that if you didn't know who this was supposed to be and that he's only an anime character, you'd swear that this was a real person.

I used as many screenshots and official line art pictures as I could to retain Jamil's distinct appearance as seen in GX, but I also had to scrounge up some good pictures of real people to be able to translate that appearance into something realistic. That wasn't easy when it came to the hair, because I've found that most of the time, anime hairstyles are very difficult to draw in a realistic manner yet keep true to the character. But I think I still did a pretty good job in trying to do that nonetheless. Working on the texture of the clothing was probably the most difficult and time-consuming part of this, as you can probably see in the semi-cross-hatching that I did. And considering how very few pictures there were to work from (excluding my previous drawings), I honestly think the best feature of this piece has to be his eyes. You're almost immediately drawn to their realism and intensity, but then again, that might just be me and the fact that I already adore Jamil's eyes to begin with. ^_^

Unfortunately, because I had to shrink this down to a reasonable size for online viewing, many details seen in the original drawing were lost. (Well the original is 16"x20" after all . . .) And my scanner washed out a lot of the shading in some of the lighter areas, so you can't see the scar or some of those other areas as much as you should be able to. I really tried to get that to show up better, but it just wouldn't work, and I apologize for that. I guess this portrait is just one of those where you'd have to see the real thing up close and personal to really appreciate its true beauty.

But all in all, I think it's safe to say that this is most likely the best drawing I have ever done. None of my previous drawings have ever come close to this level of detail and perfection, not even the ones I've done of real people. Guess that shows you how dedicated I am, ne? ^_~

Oh yeah, one last thing: Props to my friends at the Gundam.com boards for helping me in eventually coming up with a title for this piece. I wanted something unique and not mundane yet befitting of Jamil's personality, and the suggestions you guys came up with led me to choose this. Thanks bunches.