Clannad: A Song Transcending Time (Toki wo Kizamu Uta)

This vector is a gift to my sister, Nagysa; I offered her to do a vector, and she chose the original picture. I love you, onee-chan ;).

Before anything else, I would like to thank Hooyaah and ndox900 for their help, suggestions and support. If you hadn't helped me, Nagisa's eyes wouldn't be the way they are now. I really appreciate it.

Everything began after I had submitted Smoke on the water (shameless plug :P); I told Nagysa "Is there a picture that you would like me to vector?". Then she showed me this scan, which is one of our favourites Clannad pictures ever - and Clannad is one of our favourites series, too.

I called this vector "A Song Transcending Time (Toki wo Kizamu Uta)" for two very simple reasons :
First, I was always humming Toki wo Kizamu Uta while I was working on it... and it was the song who was playing when I finished it.
Second, this song is very fitting : it tells the story of Clannad, but from Tomoya's point of view. For him, there is only Nagisa. With this thought in mind, I gave everything I got in order to pay tribute to their wonderful and unforgettable love story by this simple vector.

And now, the technical details :

Original scan : This scan, by ginytah
Extracted PNG : Available on demand ;) Well, maybe I'll update this description later with a link for it, though.
Total time : 20 hours and a half
Easier parts : Line art, skin (even though finding the right shades was a bit tricky)
Harder parts : Her hair. The line art was long, but it was the shading that nearly killed me :P. But when I saw the final result I was astonished. The stripped pattern on her clothes was not hard, but it was a bit boring.
"Harder-but-challenging-and-fun" part : Her eyes. It was a very slow process, because I was unsatisfied with the final results and started over two times. I used a soft round brush, the Eraser tool, the Smudge tool and played with opacity here and there
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS5.
PSD Size : 42.5 MB
Number of Layers : 209 (excluding the lineart one)
And, a progress pic :

NOTE : DO NOT upload elsewhere and claim it as your own work. Please credit if used, and send me a link to your work (either in my guestbook or by MP); I would love to see what you did!