This started as a joke request by my wife  MatchaMADNESS when she asked me if I could draw one of her characters in in the "Two Thousand Yard Stare" painting, specifically based off this one edit someone made https://i.imgur.com/rRFhx5A.jpeg
Like many things I draw, it started as a jokey challenge, but I was committed. I re-drew the WHOLE thing, not just the cat. I started with the sky and smoke thinking "How hard could this be?" When I finally started doing the shading, that's when I realised how much work this was gonna take. I see areas that could do with improvement, but I feel like I've still done a decent job of it. I tried to re-use colours where possible, like a good little pixel artist, so I hope that I still did okay with only using like 5 shades of green, brown, and grey.
I also wanted to stay consistent with the original painting - the shape of the smoke, the details on the LVT, etc. with the only difference being Pepper. I know the original soldier didn't have a captain's insignia on the helm, that's just something I borrowed from the cat edit. I hope the cracked lens in her glasses also look alright. I have saved 2 other versions with no cracks in the glasses, and one with no glasses, but  MatchaMADNESS and I were torn on which one we liked best. I chose the one that added a little extra detail and character.
This took like 2 months of on and off work lol. I don't know how often I will do renders of this scale, but if I weren't away at work, maybe I would do these more often.
Oh yeah, just in case, it was on a 300x375 canvas, then upscaled by nearest neighbour by 300%.