Wind Sprites

As the light of the early morning sun hits the pods, they start to emerge,weak from their long confinement and struggling against the tough shells that kept them safe throughout their time of change.
Soon their new wings will be strong enough for the breeze to lightly lift them off their perches and carry them far away.

FANTASY XXIV: "Metamorphosis"

Brief: Things change. You are to depict as fantasy image of things are changing, or how they have changed over long periods. Transformations, transmutations,emerging, polymorphing, evolution, whatever you can come up with, as long as there is some sense of a before and after, it should be fair game for a subject.

Closeup of the first, second and third sprite.

Animated Work in Progress (About 450Kb)

Sources

It's amazing how things work sometimes. I usually struggle for ages to find some kind of workable concept. This time I almost instantly knew what I wanted to do. I even made pre-sketches. On actual paper.

I also found the perfect source for my main sprite in Marcus Ranum's DA gallery, so without too much fuss, she had taken (a rather nice) form. I even tried a new technique - painting on highlights instead of using the dodge tool, to give her a much more glistening / surreal look. I'm also quite proud of how well the wings turned out.

Then it got a lot harder. I wasted almost 2 days trying and discarding different backgrounds, but nothing would work. I knew what I wanted, of course, but just couldn't find it. Since time was running out, I finally settled on this one, but it isn't really such a perfect fit.

Most of the critiques I got was about the busyness or distracting quality of the background. Even though I had cleaned the original picture up considerably, I tend to agree with them. Who knows, maybe I'll find or take the perfect picture to use somewhere in the future. Then I can finish this one properly.

Final Score: 8.999 (I can't believe how close this is!! Just a mere 0.001 more and I would have had my very first 9!)

Piper's Dream

At the base of the ruined city, an old piper still plays.

Dipping into the ancient, forgotten melodies.

Conjuring up images of what was, what might have been.

What could never be again.

Fantasy XX: Music

Brief: This image must contain something related to MUSIC. Since it is difficult to make sound appear in an image, you will probably chose to show instruments, dancing, or other activities that are usually associated with sounds. MUSIC is of course a matter of taste, so a simple horn that would summon your presence on a lonely cliff, would be acceptable,full troops of colourful dancers, pied pipers, surreal images of cellos frozen in crystal, a lonely drummer, an insect rock band, a harp soothing the savage beast or just about anything you can come up with that we could foresee being associated with some sort of sound effects will be fine.

Animated Work in Progress (485 Kb)

Sources

Unfortunately this was a bit of a rush job. It's a very nice theme, but after a hectic few weeks at work and a total blank on the inspirational front, I finally had only 2 days left with nothing more to show than a few scribbles done during the boring bits of Remix'07.

I had found the piper source earlier, loved it, and wanted to use it, but he just didn't want to fit into any else. (The vertical format is more due to not being able to find satisfactory background sources than any artistic choices)

But the dragon I like. They do seem to get easier as I go along. Still blue though. He was actually supposed to have a lot more spikes along his back, but I'm impressed by how well the horns worked.

It looks ok, not as refined as it might have been, but I'm happy enough with it.

Final Score: 7.821

The Descent

Slowly, gracefully,
the Harpy descends into the dusk,
ready to claim the soul of her first victim.

Fantasy XVIII: The First

Brief: You are to depict an image that shows THE FIRST of something.This could be anything from newborns, to the oldest, to the newly coronated, first contact with aliens, first explored planet, a first kiss, or victory, or the launch of some new overwhelming project on which something is dependent like the first starship, heck you could show the favourite among the concubines of some sultan...lots and lots of fun for the whole family.

Work in Progress

Sources

Once again, I'm really grateful to Tracie76 for letting me use one of her wonderful jump photos. (I used them previously for In Captivity)

I really wanted to do something a bit less depressing for this contest, so someone or something experiencing flight for the first time, immediately came to mind. I started this, abandoned it in favour of a Da Vinci-esque, bubble driven flying machine, and then came back to it when I couldn't find the exact right pictures I needed for the other one.

I liked the fact that her arms were merged into the wings, making her different from most usual winged humanoids. After doing a bit of research, I settled on a Harpy.

Traditionally they are depicted as a bird of prey with the face and torso of a woman. In earlier myths they were described as beautiful, winged maidens, or winged death-spirits. It was only later that they became the hideous, foul-smelling, winged monsters with the face of an ugly old woman, represented carrying off persons to the underworld and inflicting punishment or tormenting them.

For obvious reasons, I opted for the earlier description, as well as their traditional Greek role of escorting the spirits of the dead.

I like the warm, pastel colours. It's a bit different from my normal, colder palette, but it works and helps to create a much more serene atmosphere.

I'm really satisfied with the final result.

Final Score: 8.155

Slip of the Tongue

Anatomy Sramble 2

Just a quick little chop that didn't really do as well as I had hoped.
Still, I quite like the way it came out.

Final Score: 6.119

Mothers

Tree of Life 7

An arboreal Lamaze class.

Closeup

Sources

This one was actually meant for the Fantasy XIV: Humanoids contest, but with the holidays and everything, I just never got around to finishing it. It was actually going to be based on the fates - the maiden, the mother and the crone, but when a Tree of Life contest came around again, all I had to do was make them all pregnant, and it fit the theme perfectly.
I'm really not that used to short contests anymore, so their lack of proper heads is due to my time running out. (And because none of the available pregnant source pics actually showed faces)
Unfortunately, my newly pregnant sister found the fact that I had 'decapitated' them, rather traumatic.

Final Score: 7.276

The Last Naiad

"Whether science or magic was to blame, nobody knew, but something was turning all the water in the world into ice. It started slowly, unobtrusively - tiny flecks of ice floating in ponds, a few crystals on the edges of a waterfall. But like an infection, the ice kept spreading.

The Naiads, so intimately connected to the bodies of water under their protection that their very existence depended on it, were the first to feel the lasting effects. Their aqueous bodies became lethargic, hard to move. They tried to fight it, but the spread of the ice was unrelentless and absolute

Finally, one by one, they stopped struggling, giving themselves over to the ice and it's cold, hard oblivion."

Fantasy XIII: Sole Survivor

Brief: Depict an image of the last surviving entity of some type. What that survivor is, will be up to you, and we will be generous in the interpretation, but loss, tragedy, and even hope are historically the types of emotions that images of this type try to convey.

Work in Progress

Sources

Closeup

I struggled to find a concept for this one. At first I wanted to do something a lot more personal (and more obviously sad) , but while I was looking for sources, I discovered this beautiful photo by osga and this picture just sort of grew from there.

Of course, the whole viral ice thing was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's Ice-nine from Cat's Cradle. I've never actually read it, but the concept has intrigued me for a while. I just wanted to put a bit of a fantasy angle on it.

Doesn't amphibian feet just make the most interesting ears/fins?

I know the tail doesn't really make sense anatomically, but I needed something to enhance the transparency of her liquid form. I actually wanted to turn it into hair or a headdress or something, but I just literally ran out of time.

At least all this work earned me my highest score yet.

Final Score: 8.927

Castle Wyvern

Fantasy XII: Stonework Archaeologica

Brief: Portray a scene with an ancient weathered structure. Ideally it should be intriguing, ancient, isolated, quite large, from some undetermined culture, and made of some durable material (stone, old wood, crystal, masonry, bronze etc). The environment is up to you, but should mesh well with the structure, and any optional life forms present.

Work in Progress

Closeup of the Dragon

Sources


I'm actually quite happy with the way this one came out.

It was a very last minute decision to actually participate this month, giving me about a week to do it. As usual, it took a few days to find a useable concept, and in the end it was the wonderful perspective of the bridge that inspired me. (The fact that I recently found a few episodes of the old Gargoyles animated series on YouTube might also have had something to do with it. It was definitely the inspiration for the title)

Finding source pictures that fit into that perspective...well, let's just say I truly considered starting over quite a few times. Luckily, atmospheric colour saved me in quite a few places.

When the castle was finally done to my satisfaction, the image still needed something, a focus point of some sort. Thus happened the dragon.

It's strange, my very first dragon took about a week to finish, and I'm still not completely satisfied with her. I made this one in less than a day, but I think his overall look is much more consistent. His face could use a bit more work, but overall, I'm pretty proud of him.

Final Score: 8.315

Signs of life

I know I have been very quiet lately.

No, I wasn't kidnapped by a bunch of rogueish, yet charmingly sexy pirates who forced me to wear tight bodices and survive on nothing but skilly 'n duff and seaweed grog.

Nor did aliens abduct me to perform strange, and surprisingly kinky, experiments on my shining example of a human brain.

I didn't even find a magical wardrobe that led into a fantastical world where I had lots of wonderful adventures and later returned wiser and more mature than before. That will only happen on the 18th.

It did involve a dragon though.

The biggest reason is probably Worth1000. They actually convinced me to spend ridiculous amounts of time doing things like this and this. But it's a lot of fun. And probably one of the first times in my life where I am doing arty/creative things because I actually enjoy it, and not just because it is part of some assignment or project.

Another reason is my recent discovery of the wonderful world of webcomics. I found the first one while doing research for my dragon picture, and now I'm hooked!
I've always been facinated by manga and comic book art, but it just never really occurred to me to follow the next logical step and start drawing it myself. I do like the colouring part, just not really the drawing from scratch.

Anyway, here is a few of the prettiest ones in case somebody is interested.

Fallen - Sadly, it is not being updated at the moment, but I live in hope, since I'm completely in love with the sketchy style of the later pages.

Inverloch - Also on hiatus for a bit, but it's getting published next year, so it should be back soon. Beautiful, full-colour pages.

Juathuur - B &W, but it actually updates 7 days a week!

The Saga of Eruune - Strange story, but a very unique, avant-gardey style with lots of intricate linework.

Redemption - Some of the pages are being redone in a much cleaner, stylised way, but I still like the rough scratchy originals.

Ironic Victory

After almost 4 months of trying, I have finally won a 1st place trophy in a Worth1000 contest.

The irony is that while I worked for hours on some of my previous entries, this one took 10 minutes at the most. I even had doubts whether I should enter it or not.