Head in the clouds, feet on the ground!

This skin is my entry in the first round of yelloe's summer themed skin contest. :D The theme for round one is daydreams or daydreaming.

I've taken too much time figuring out how to do this skin. I immediately knew what concept I wanted to do, like the title suggests; head in the clouds, feet on the ground. My first issue was shaping the clouds, which proved very tricky! Fist I made small clouds in front of the face but it was too subtle. Then I made them swirly to make them more bold but this had them look.. not much like clouds. Then when I finally had the clouds figured out by making the entire head one big cloud, and when the "ground" on the feet was shaped, I had no clue what to do with the rest of the skin!

First I made a green shirt + denim shorts which didn't feel dreamy enough. Then I went with a romantic red dress which didn't work well with the softness of the clouds. Then I tried blue, but my shading was much too strong and saturated. Finally I landed on a pastel purple color for the dress with a mint colored detail to give the skin a slightly more vibrant feel. Oh, and it wasn't until I had the skin "finished" that I figured she might have hair too, so I added in some braids. Making dreamy, cutesy and pastel-looking skins and palettes is not my strong suit. But I tried and I learned some things, so it was worth the effort. ^_^