Eiri and Shuichi
The Trouble with Tribbles, Gravitation-Style
A Gravitation/Star Trek Crossover Image

As you recall, tribbles come in pink, yellow, tan and lots of other colours, so as an extra, I had to add a little yellow and very pissed off Tohma tribble in the background. The Tohma tribble wanted to claim the Eiri Klingon for his very own!

I wanted the pink tribble's eyes to show how much in love he was with his choice, while 'marking' his territory, sweetly. Initially, rat wasn't too fond of the eyes and teeth because canon tribbles don't have them, at least anything remotely visible as far as we know. I guess these are 'new and improved' tribbles. These tribbles like Klingons and want to bond with them, choosing one to be with the rest of their tribble lives and biting to seal the permanent claim.

It IS a frightening thought, isn't it? All that loud trilling, purring and chirping, 24-7? That furry bit of fluff rubbing up against poor Eiri all the time? Wait! He has that problem in the canon universe! *laugh*

It was very difficult to decide just how far to take the Klingon attributes and still try to retain Eiri's appearance. I considered giving him the high Klingon forehead but finally decided against it, hoping the forehead ridges and skintones would be enough to pull it off. I made E's skin darker so it was more Klingon in colour and made his hair darker than usual, in keeping with the 'race' change. I wanted to keep his entire look in shades of gold and golden brown except for the silver metal of his collar pips and his dagger earring.

I used a #F pencil for the sketch, Staedtler pigment liner sizes 07, 05, 01 and 005 for the inking and Photoshop 7 for the cg.

For E's skin colour, I used the cell shading technique I learned on the various oekaki boards and the blur tool to smooth the lines. The hair is straight cell shading with coloured line accents while the uniform is a combination of solid colour and textured/filtered layers.

The tribble started with a solid pink background. Then I used a variety of colours to make the hair strands and the small amount of cell shading.

The hearts and the sweatdrop were done with gradients.