I had remembered making a comment about this and how this drawing came about a few months ago somewhere on LiveJournal. I recently discovered it in the Gravitation Muse Meet discussion about Snuggle 4.

I started the drawing back on July 3rd, 2004 when the comments about the Snuggle 4 pic included references to pirates. I abandoned the sketch when the cabin boy I was trying to draw in the background, Eiri, would not shape up. I did not think this pic would ever be. E was being very uncooperative when it came to posing for this one. I think he was feeling humiliated and embarrassed. I usually draw him in a good light, so he might have felt betrayed by me, hence being cranky about posing. When I erased the cabin boy, everything fell into place nicely. In fact, it finished up in only a few hours, including the inking.

After I finished it, E started bitching about wanting to be in the pic again. I told him to smeg off - saying he should have cooperated in the beginning.

All the colouring was done in Photoshop 7, as usual. I tried to go for a more anime/oekaki cell shading look to the colouring technique this time. The hat feathers were the exception - I had to make them fluffy.

I added some overlay textures to the pants, vest and pouch to give those items a little more depth.

The pirate ship in the background is an altered photo I took at Disneyland, May 2000.