Note: please see the widescreen version (1920 x 1200) as it's the most complete.
Get the absurdly huge resolutions here!
iPad and iPhone versions are here!

Urgh, never working on a 9600 x 6000 canvas again x_x Nearly choked my PC to early death.The whole PSD is 560 MB too, haha.
The title refers to the fact that I obsess over the first snowfall of the year seasons are cyclical (audience: duh). And because there are circles in the image. IDK I was lazy. Just thank me for not naming it after Ke$ha's song "Take It Off" that came up on random mode.

So who did I suffer through all of this for? Well Doki of course! It was all for the Greater Good, namely delivering a birthday present for her. I was under the impression that this anime was one of her faves, but plot twist: she's never even watched it, lol. So I don't know whose watchlist I went through, but I managed to grab this scan. Couple it with Alenas introducing me to Florence + The Machine's What the Water Gave Me and Leave My Body and you have this painted wall.

If you've looked through my gallery you already know how inept I am at painting, but this wall was very fun to make for some reason o.O I expected the hair to be more difficult but it was actually the easiest part! The most entertaining part was discovering and enabling OpenGL in Photoshop, kinda like 2:03 here - see that? imagine me doing just that and laughing like an idiot kid for 10 minutes while Enrique Iglesias's Escape plays in the background. Honestly, this wasn't that difficult to make, most difficult part was having to motivate myself to get started, lol.

This went through several ideas, which included having plants at the bottom of the lake (too much work, not visible anyway), lotus flowers (it's winter, dumbass) and stars reflecting on the water (can't snow from a clear sky, dumbass). I even used the snowflake brush that comes with PS for the first version of the snow, but it was too small and using it at 2500px meant it was horribly pixelated and not even blurring could save it, so I went and found these gorgeous godsends and remade all the snow to with them. Also made a potential star field on a 10.000 x 10.000 px canvas which I ended up not using; imagining that with 78 layers makes me choke, let alone my PC.

Technical details: original canvas was 9600 x 6000 px (PC: kill me plz), no textures, made with default PS brushes and custom snowflake ones. Discovered lots of neat brushes this way, especially for painting hair, and I like to think my hand doesn't shake as much anymore, lol. All in all 78 layers, not the most I've done but the biggest for sure.
See the detailed walkthrough here~ (warning: absurdly big - 1055x3000 px, ~800KB)

Thank you for seeing my pain and, if you happen to like it, leaving a comment and/or faving c: