~Mei~ (Always Human Art Contest Submission)

Mei is quite an interesting character of mine. And one, that I must admit, I feel highly privileged to have met.

Before I get into the details, I must enter into the primary reason for this drawing, first.
Always Human is an absolutely fantastic webcomic, in my opinion.
Without a doubt, one of my absolute favorites.
Also, the art style is amazing, and the characters are amazing, and Sunati and Austen and the world they live in
oh my god, I wish I could live there and it's in the future where people can be who they want to be and and and

Ahem.

To put it bluntly, I'm a sucker for honest love stories. That is to say, love stories that involve "real" people.
By real, I mean imperfect people: to me, most times, things can only be real if they aren't perfect.
But let's not get too deep into philosophy right now, tho.

See, thing is, I absolutely love Always Human. I always get invariably excited whenever a new chapter is uploaded.
And then, once upon a chapter 40 of the comic, the artist of Always Human decided to hold an Art Contest.
And, as you can guess, I really REALLY wanted to participate.

And that's why I made this drawing ^^"

Anyway, details on Mei. I created Mei a long time ago. About the time I lost my first .5mm pencil.
I'll spare you the details on his original conception, but I'll describe who he is now.
He is, without a doubt, a person of fluid gender identity. He doesn't mind whether you call him a he, she, or they.
All that matters to him is that people know that he is who he is, and he wears what he wears.
Which is, as you can guess, whatever he likes. ((ayyyy Ken Ashcorp's song "Wear" is a really great song. just saying))
Also, he takes philosophy and psychology classes. =w=

In the end, I selected Mei for this Art Contest because I felt that he, out of all my characters, would best be able to enjoy the world of Always Human.
He's usually more reserved than I made him in this picture, but I think this would work and be possible in Always Human.
((By reserved, I mean he wouldn't take such an open pose. He'd be more reserved.))

Also, in other news, I put him in a really, REALLY old outfit. You can see the original in my previous uploads.
Wanted to do an updated, colored version of it.
I think it looks nice ^^"

I'll prolly upload the wip/draft thing at some point. Gimme a bit.

also, pulled out all the stops in trying to get the anatomy right.
I actually succeeded for the most part.
You'll see the details in the wip/draft when I get it uploaded. might do it tonight or tomorrow.

hands are evil. so are feet, but apparently less evil than hands(?).

also, I totally messed up on the eyes at the end ;-;

Tools:
My 0.5mm Pentel P205 Mechanical Pencil, Alys Pavais.
My 0.7mm Pentel P207 Mechanical Pencil, Mei Pavais.
An eraser given to me by artist A. Tran (it's almost ded ;-; )
A Tran's Color Pencils. (srsly good pencils. borrowed them for another yet unfinished project. need to get on that lmao it's been two months)