When I looked at the theme at first I was shocked. That was an idea I have come across and unfortunately used to some extent, so I was out of ideas. One thing I knew I had to do was use the art from SHUNPEI. I was deeply attracted to the colors and detail gone into the beautiful work.

Since the beginning of W.A.R I had to fight my friends and myself. Although this is the Final round, I will still have to continue fighting. W.A.R, to me, was the beginning of another round of battles, even though this is the end. I will be fighting myself to become a better artist, and fighting others... well, in the respect that these will be the people I'll aspire to and hopefully evolve into, by learning from everyone.

This wallpaper highlights two friends parting for separate ways at the end of W.A.R. Although it is the end (of W.A.R), it is only the beginning- to victory, to defeat, to learning, to evolving, to reincarnating. As it is also the end, I hope that I can lose or win in fashion. These bright colors symbolise my feelings towards the W.A.R. By participating, I can wear these colors and be decorated with such beauty.

It was a hard task doing this because the two characters were actually entwined- I had to vector each one separately and "make up" some patterns. Everything you see on this- is a vector. I was starting to doubt myself and wonder if it was actually possible to vector all that detail. In the end, I did. It took ages- I'm not going to try that ever again :P One of the hardest parts was figuring out what belonged to who- and also I lost an hours' worth of outlining because the psd crashed -_-. The vectoring style I adopted is pretty different from anything else I've seen- needless to say, it helped maintain the original art style from SHUNPEI.

The background design was the most time consuming. I suddenly became a perfectionist and after 3 different backgrounds starting from scratch each time, I finally settled down for this final version. The name also changed because of that. First time around there was a path split down the middle but the balance was off. The second time round they were placed on a board game but I hated the colours and composition. This is the third version I made. "What is the background?" you may ask. That is for you to decide ;) One thing I want to point out are the 3 glass shaped objects behind the purple figure. 3 steps, one smaller than the other (left to right). Does that remind you of the structure of W.A.R? Lol. Every round includes less people XD

In the original scan, one was standing and the other was upside down. Not hard to figure out which was which- but I didn't want them entwined. I separated them, and they looked like Gods (or Goddesses rather :P)- one claimed the glory (the W.A.R medallion is in her hand), the other must venture on with an inevitable fate (she has a die with all faces with a 6- a bit like a board game- only she has no choice every time she rolls). The fire on the ground is reminiscent of the idiom "out of the frying pan into the fire"- only I swapped it around to "out of the fire into the....?"Who knows how many other W.A.Rs will there be? Who knows what will happen after the W.A.R?

This piece is open for interpretation. I didn't want to restrict my audience, and I didn't really see the difference between the two options to choose from- it really depended on the person looking at the artwork and how they felt at the time. When I'm in a good mood, I think to myself "This is such a beautiful world. Even though it's sad, this is still a beautiful world holding memories". When I'm in a bad mood, I think to myself, "It's time to say goodbye. Who knows what lies along the path? There's no turning back."

It's a bittersweet ending. Bitter, for there is a large chance of losing, and for all those losses along the way- we must now say goodbye. Sweet, for you continue to move on- although the future is unknown, the final battle still lies along the way- far, far away. A battle with yourself. We may meet again.

Tragic, because you can't look back- nothing changes your fate. It's inevitable and it lies ahead on a terrifying path. We will never meet again. We clearly head in different directions. Life is a game; play it.

The end is only the birth of beginnings.

Let the revolution begin.