I haven't painted anything without some sort of deadline in a long time, and doing this particular piece was therapeutic. It started out as my entry for the Art Challenger community's first challenge (take an older piece and redraw it), but eventually I took it quite seriously and got carried away.
For anyone interested, the original piece was of the elf lady Nimrodel, which I did two years ago. It can be found here: http://www.trinitycross.net/red/g02a/05.html