This is the first artwork I've done that really classifies as "fan art"
(although I accidentally drew Vash the Stampede one time but he is
not exactly in this scope so nevermind). Anyway, I was dead set on
drawing Tifa, although I was a little hard-pressed to come up with a
meaningful concept. After all, it's Tifa, and anything Tifa-related comes
under entirely too much scrutiny by the Internet community for reasons I
won't go into.
In case it isn't apparent in the picture, I was trying to convey a sense
of nostalgia. Tifa returns to Nibelheim for the first time in
God-knows-how-long and sees the hat she was wearing the day her life
changed (the day her father died and Cloud went psycho). She's upstairs,
in her room, thinking about how simple her life was. Presumably she
realizes her childhood was manufactured and decides that's why she's
fighting.
I hoped the predominate leather-clad-kickboxer imagery would contrast
with the seemingly out-of-place cowboy hat, the goal being to show the
survival-of-the-fittest vs. live-and-let-live conflict present in so much
anime. I also tried to proportion her at least somewhat
realistically, if not believably, which turned out to be
much harder to do. To that end please notice she is wearing shorts
and not a skirt.
