"Unless" Finished

This one took me a while, but I love the gold and brown color scheme, so it was not 'painful' to go through. ^^  My "Unless" for the Enchanted Visions Project's March 2012 theme/prompt.  I saw some members taking inspiration from "The Lorax" movie and its message, and I originally contemplated something along the line, but the sketch didn't happen and I changed my angle completely and I like the result.   I just took the word, 'unless', and developed the scene of the image from scratch.    I had the 'girl with a doll that looks and is dressed just like her' idea.  Next came the idea of the doll's missing eye to incorporate the 'unless' concept -- "You will never look exactly like me unless we can fix that left eye of yours, ... but maybe I like you better this way."

Putting the steampunk touch was further inspired when I was looking at my previous steampunk piece "Steampunk Dark Angel".  The cats were added to the scene so that the girl and the scene aren't devoid of some warmth. ^^;  I had fun with the details like the 'cat with the aviator goggles', which was in the original pencil sketch.  I gave the doll's hat to one of the kitties as well to suggest that the goggles on the kitty were also the doll's.  The doll is being made to look less and less identical to the girl.

It could be just me, but I think the colored version looks less 'creepy', compared to the line art version.  I do like the overall mysterious mood and the story that seems to be in the process of unfolding.  I hope the viewers of this piece can have fun coming up with their own versions of the story. ^^