I was doing a search for Hello Kitty images (for another project) and ran across an image at vexel.net (btw, I really like their bamboo-themed banner). I'd never heard of vexel graphics before although it reminded me of that old Duran Duran style. I ended up following a link to the artist's site and her page at Deviant Art and contacted her to see if she'd do a commission piece. I was thinking it would be cool to have an image of Mie in that style. Before she got back to me on her rates, I considered that maybe I should look into doing one myself as this week's art thing. I assumed at first that it would be much too hard, but realized I should at least try. With a little research I found a pretty good tutorial and realized my Photoshop skills were probably up to the task.

So I started with this image:

Then using the tutorial as a guide I made a basic vexel Mie:

I made sure to have a no hair version so I could play with hair styles a bit:

Then, since I <3 SuicideGirls, I added some spiky hair:

And then some red highlights:

Finally I gave her a lip ring and lightened the skin tone a bit:

If you have Adobe Photoshop, you can download the image file and play around with the layers to make your own custom Mie.