Nessie

There's a bit of a story behind this XD

About a week ago, I had a dream that my dad and I were scuba diving in Loch Ness. There had been lost of sightings of Nessie lately in the dream, but we didn't pay much attention to them.
We dove, saw fish, normal scuba stuff; and we came up to the shore for a break. We were standing on this flat, white rock and talking, when all of a sudden Nessie rises from the loch to feed on plants that were on the shore. She hadn't expected to see us there, and was a bit surprised; but she didn't dive back in, she just stayed there, staring curiously at us.
And I remembered distinctly what she looked like :u
So when I woke up, I drew her so I wouldn't forget. And surprisingly, my drawing was almost EXACTLY how I remembered her.
Throughout the day, I kept thinking about doing a digital painting of my dream-Nessie, but I didn't really think I could pull it off.
And then I remembered hearing somewhere, "When you see something great, don't think, 'I wish I could make that'. Think, 'I wonder how I could make that.'"
I'd never really thought about it before, and I wish I remember where I heard/read it. But I started thinking, and I remembered all the amazing digital paintings I've seen here on dA, and I decided it wouldn't hurt to try.

So this is the result. :>

It took over 5 hours, maybe even 7. ;o; But all that hard work really paid off, I think 8'D
I don't know if this would be considered a digital painting, as it was done on more than 1 layer - 54 to be exact XD So it might just be a piece done in a painted style.

The image itself is HUGE. I wish I could let you guys download it to see the fullview, but this is by far my best work yet and I really don't want thieves and noobs taking it D:
So sorry that I had to put that watermark on there; I'm not normally afraid of thieves, but I'm particularly attached to this piece and don't want anyone taking it. :c

I will open it up for prints though, which will NOT have the watermark, so if you buy a print you get the HQ version 8D

I'm not to big a fan of those clouds though ;-; I ended up redoing them 3 times, and by the 3rd time I was tired of doing clouds and just settled with this. XD

Anyways, comments, favs, and constructive critique definitely welcome 8D

P.S. I listened to Adrian von Ziegler's music while making this. He is AMAZING and you should hear some of his music ;o;
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