"Unless" Lines Inked

Posting my inked lines for "Unless" this morning.  This was finished yesterday afternoon (Finally!) while I watched my current favorite anime series, "Another", for the second time (Just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything since I always multi-task by watching while I draw... ).  I like drawing girly dresses with ribbons, lace trims, frills, and flowers.  It brings back memories of my childhood doodling my favorite manga characters -- funny how I recall they were all frilly girly-girls and I didn't grow up to be one in real life....

This EV theme/prompt "Unless" was originally inspired by "The Lorax" book, according to the EV administrator, but having spent my childhood in Japan, I didn't grow up reading Dr. Seuss books, so the reference was all but lost in me.  I kind of had a preachy, environmental idea at first, but couldn't feel compelled by it enough to proceed.  Waited the rest of February and early part of March to see if I think up something else while taking on other projects, but nothing came until I saw the dolls in the aforementioned anime.  The steampunk styling was decided on yet later when I saw the newly released "Steampunk Dark Angel" tube.

Steampunk is not something I draw/paint often and I believe it has everything to do with my intimidation with the mechanical aspect of it.  ^^;  Drawing organic lines of flowers is easy, but drawing a straight line or perfectly arched curve is a lot more challenging. XD  And I don't enjoy drawing cogs at all, yet these things make anything look 'steampunk' just by being slapped on randomly.  That said, I LOVE the genre when it's well-done.  The mood, the details, the inventiveness and the creativity that go into a steampunk piece all make the artwork so interesting to look at.  I don't like artwork where a girl is merely wearing a steampunk-ish item in her clothing and looking pretty with no technological inventiveness implied elsewhere in the image.  So I try to put that into my steampunk work, and all that pretty much guarantees tedious planning and drawing. ^^;

This one will have the implied technology in the forms of far-away blimps and smoggy sky seen from the ornate steampunk window in the background, which isn't even drawn in the line art.  Other than that, maybe the doll the girl is holding is a fancy automaton (Speaking of an automaton, I loved the movie, "Hugo".).  My first ever steampunk piece was "Steampunk Dark Angel", which was all about technology (mechanical angel wings), but this one puts a little creepiness into the sweet frills of Victorian fashion by adding the young girl with a broken doll whose emotions are ambiguous, judging from her lack of expression on her pretty doll-face.