almost forgot to upload this, but I'd like to do so before the new year starts (It's probably already started for some of you oops).
this is my 2023 Secret Santa drawing, and by some sheer coincidence, I got my broski @/Shellzilla_515 as my recipient haha! I think I may have jinxed it, because before I got the match I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be hilarious if I got [him] as my recipient?" and then it actually happened
broski I think I've drawn your lovely bird boy Pag-asa more this year than I've drawn my own floofa choof lol.
anyway, he simply requested that his Santa draw Pag-asa (aka the best birb there ever was), and said that he didn't want the drawing to be Christmas themed, but he didn't mind a Winter theme. he also listed a few of his favourite villagers, including Agent S, Celia, and Queenie. I thought, hey, he really likes Celia (having talked about her quite a bit in the past), so why don't I draw the two together building a snowman? I wanted to experiment a bit with the angle in this drawing, creating a top-down perspective, and idk how well I executed it but I like how this looks! I made the scarf and hat of the snowman blue because that's Shell's favourite colour, and I added a purple flower because purple is nice and complements the shadows of the blue hehe.
while I was coming up with an outfit I remembered when Shell drew Pag-asa (as well as characters for me, @/Midoriya, and @/Roxxy) wearing winter gear, so I used that as a reference! I did add a few Christmas-esque elements, like the poinsettias (yes I'm aware it's a tropical flower and wouldn't grow in snow skdjfks) and ornaments, but I figured they weren't explicitly Christmas themed and would look nice. and of course, I had to make everything nice and colourful and sparkly!
it's funny because there were a few things going on during the process of this drawing that tickled me a bit. at one point I shared with him a piano cover I did of KK Aria, and he said "this song always makes me think of Celia" as I'm literally sitting here drawing Celia, whom he didn't explicitly ask to be drawn but I decided to draw anyway haha. then, at another point, he had shared with me the documentary that he recently watched about Philippine Eagles (which, btw, was absolutely gorgeous and it really touched my heart), and seeing how happy he was (and is) talking about them, made it even more special to me that I was drawing his bird bab for him yet again.
my dear friend dealt with some struggles during the holiday season, but despite that, he seemed to be incredibly grateful for this drawing, and felt honoured that I was the one to draw it for him. I'm always happy to draw for my dear friends, and it brings me an insurmountable joy that he ended up loving it as much as he did.