Ciri final look reveal! [And story about hardships of choice]

Hello my Sweethearts!
First of all, I wanted to thank all of you, who found time and shared their thoughts in comments to my previous posts. Such activity makes my day brighter and full of hopes. )

Thing, that's always hard for me, is to choose first image to work on on post-production. It doesn't mean all our shots great, but there is always one better photo at the moment of choosing. Later, it'll appear not such, hahaha )
As all creators and as you know, I need to spend time to promote myself in internet via social media.  My income depends on how much people might decide to support me on Patreon or by buying my works on Etsy/Gumroad.
To achieve that, I need to make sure first ever photo revealed to my Friends here and later to community outside, will look great and appealing.
Funny thing, photo I consider the best looking one, rarely gets spotlight. But the other one, that I finished later and haven't hopes on, might find more people's hearts. Internet algorithms are mystery )

Ciri wasn't an exception. Actually this image wasn't the first choice. Maybe the problem is, we don't shoot projects in order to achieve one super shot. That one image, that'll be overhelmingly good to the point, you can dig quality right from the screen like some minerals. )
Some of my Friends here are that kind of photographers and I just wish there will be more photos to grasp the quality from every angle. Hear me? ) And yes, I look up and learn )
We, as creators, work in the area with huge competition, where women goodies everywhere in every colors, shapes and sizes. It is hard to try to compete with amount of content every cosplay model produces every month. In this environment you need to produce a lot from one photoshoot. Even so, I know, that amount of reward is not enough for the amount of funds I ask on each tier, but to our saddnes, currently we are working on our maximum capacity.
So, the way we need to approach to our projects these days is to get as many good shots as possible on general level, rather taking one briliant shot that'll tell all about us and the project.
Until that day will come, I'll have difficuties to choose first shot to work on and share. )

I've never had friends from so many different working areas before I meet all of you. So here is question (more curiocity) I wanted to know your opinion on, because we all use tools in certain way. Small backstory to the question.
Recently I decided to try enter chinese platform called weibo. Even made first post there. Two problems I had from this experience. First, I don't know chinese language (any dialect, because there is no thing like chinese language, too different from province to province. Thing like that works also for most Europian countries as much as I know and read) and automatic google page translator doesn't work on all pages or doesn't work on most buttons. Which makes hard to post or do anything.
Second, amount of talented photographers and quality cosplays is huge. Great place to get inspitration and make yourself humbled, like reality check. ) But!
I'm closer to the question. ) Most of photoshoots I saw, weren't that hard to pull of from photographer's perspective. All you need is to have high quality tool - expensive camera and lense. If you try same idea on cheap camera and lense, it might not look that way (superb looking). Of course you can achieve a lot with cheaper equipment to certain level, but eventually might hit the wall.
Is there big dependence in your field of work from high quaity tool/tools you are using? For how much amount of your personal skill will be enough with cheap tools, befoe you'll hit the "wall"? And for how long?
Hope my question doesn't sound stupid ) Currently I'm in situation, when in order to improve and move with the world I need huge upgrade of my equipment. Sooner the better. If I go all in, I won't have anything, but will get tools needed. If I won't do it sooner, I don't know when I'll have opprtunity for upgrade, but at least I'll be safe. )
That's why I'm curious )

Hope you'll like the first look of our Ciri. As I wrote before, we wanted to have drawing vibe from the images. Let me know, if we managed to achieve it! )

Have a great day!