happy new year

Because it's not -really- the new year until the Chinese say so.

Well, it'll very soon be the first day of the Lunar New Year celebrations, so I thought a picture was appropriate (Okay, so I'm a little early. I want to spend my time doing homework tomorrow, sue me.)
Mind you, it's still not officially the new year until Feb 4th, the official 'start of spring', but hey, most people will be getting into the spirit right now, so why not? Of course I won't be celebrating Chinese New Year with my family for the next four years because I'm stuck here in January, bah. But at least I'll still get my red packets ^^ Free-flow GREAT food and cash. plus noisy happy family blackjack games. my favourite time of year. xD

Anyway. It'll be the year of the Red Dog this year, and featured here is =TygerStKuan's gorgeous little Pekingese girl, Cookie I was originally going to have Swift on the card, with an assortment of 'red' dogs like the Irish Setter, redbone and Vizsla, but Tyger wrote me asking if I wouldn't mind drawing a picture of Cookie, my gallery being swamped with dog pictures these days and all. I don't normally take requests but Tyger is a friend (of a friend, too xD), and it occurred to me that having a Peke on the card would give it more of an Oriental feel, Pekes being Chinese dogs. So.. here she is with her earfluffs done up in buns. I thought it'd be cute :3

Symbolic Details For Those Who Care And So Nobody Has To Ask:
1. Orange has eight segments - eight is a lucky number to the Chinese. I was going to have the traditional lucky two oranges there, but I couldn't get the composition to work right. =_= So I made the twin beads on her hairpieces orange to make up for it xD

2. Her collar is based off a popular new year home decoration. The word is Chun, meaning Spring, turned upside down. Upside down because the Chinese for 'invert' sounds similar to the Chinese for 'arrive'. Yes, Chinese know how to pun.

3. Red and gold - good luck; the new year colours. The Chinese words mean Happy New Year xD (and no, they DON'T say 'gong xi fa cai', that means something along the lines of 'may you prosper'. Just 'happy new year' is 'xin nian kuai le'.)