ElfQuest Fan Art

Sera, I hope you come to this site to read your comments.  I just want to congratulate you, I have seen so much improvement in your art in the last year or so.  This is by far the most ambitious piece I've ever seen you do - both in the concept and the sheer amount of drawing involved.

I know you still consider your coloring a bit rough, but it doesn't matter, the characters are drawn very well and you nailed the theme dead on!

I agree, Trinket is my favorite part of this.  How you've drawn her just makes me laugh - it is so her!  Overall this is probably the most Pini-esque of the entries, the characters and style are just spot-on.

I got that the sword was wood.  The only way to have made that even more clear would be to have more blunt tips instead of sharp ones like a metal sword.

Actually, I think the textured paper was an asset for the leaves and tree trunk.  There is a beautiful depth and tactile quality there.  Really hard to do detail, though, with so much tooth.

I am sad this was too late to judge.  After judging, Joselle went AWOL with her professional work and Richard was busy with the new website, so we couldn't re-judge.

I hope you participate next year, though!  Your work has a different, more fanciful feel to it that I think would add a nice variety.

I think I can speak for Joselle and tell you that this is totally digital.  I have GOT to find out where she gets those paper textures, though.  I might be able to stand to do CG art if I had some.

What I love about this piece is that, because of the close POV, you really feel like you are in a cotton-candy colored cloud of preservers.  You can almost hear the fluttering of wings around you.  The viewer is invited into the picture rather than just being an observer.

I always expect to see fantastic art from Joselle.  What constantly astounds me is how she can come up with awesome ideas and brilliant execution in such a short amount of time!  I am SO slow!  LOL

You are another artist I can count on to "push" the theme past the obvious choices.  Last year, with your four non-magic users in a magic calendar: brilliant!

This could easily have been the cover if I hadn't twisted Joselle's arm.  The way you've linked Pike finding his place with his stories helping the cubs find theirs; this is a wonderful example of the theme.

You always have such good solid line work and drawing skills, too.  I especially like this wolf.  He really looks like he fits in the EQ world - you are getting to be a pro at looking at real wolf references and stylizing them enough so they "fit."

This is very much right on target for this theme.  I would say you were a runner-up in the contest - very close.

I like how you frame the view with the arch of rock.  The warm glow on the walls from the forge is a nice touch, too.

Unfortunately, I don't know the story of Rahnee except in the most general sense.

But what strikes me about this piece is that not only does Rahnee have a fierce expression, but EVERYTHING else is also adding to that fierce, tense feeling.  The jaggy lines on her torn clothes, the tree roots radiating out crazily and the way you textured them, the furious markings of the grass - it reminds me a little of Van Gogh's obsessive mark-making.  His drawings have an intensity that is similar to what you've achieved here.

Might have been the wrong proportions for the calendar, but if this had been your only entry, we would have MADE it work!  

I agree with Mouse, nice job on a threatening Two-Spear full of testosterone!

Love your inking - instead of copying Wendy's style of inking, you got her character proportions correct and then inked in your own style.  Works marvelously!

Again, I'm loving the traditional media.  There is a quality to your inking that reminds me of one of my favorite Golden Age illustrators, Arthur Rackham.

It is just awesome to see the main EQ characters, who everyone draws so much, done in such a different and exciting manner.  There is so much going on here visually.  I admire your attention to detail even in the background (too often neglected, I think).  One feels you could really explore that tree den!

Although your other entry was chosen, this was also an intriguing and not-so-obvious choice for this theme.  But if there was ever a character who was trying to find his place in the world, it was Two-Edge!

This is well done, dramatic, and could easily have had a place in the calendar (the other one was just so dang cute, though).

Afke, I LOVE that you always come up with something unexpected for your calendar entries.  You never pick the obvious for any theme, but instead try to push the envelope - as I was always taught to do for art school assignments.  Because of you we have a richer collection of characters in each year's calendar.

As you know, I am also a sucker for hand drawn and colored art.  This entry just gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

I can always rely on you to contribute a piece that is full of action and dramatic perspectives (dare I say comic-booky?) - this is what separates the portrait artists from the storytellers!  Instead of concentrating on a character, you concentrate on an EVENT.  Same with your Savah/Yurek piece last year - it didn't show just a magic user with glowy hands, it was a magical happening with a whole back-story.

I have to say that this is probably the best portrayal of the theme in this year's calendar.  Not an expected portrayal certainly, but it very clearly shows the CHOICE that is made when finding one's place.

Woo, Kelly!  I am so glad you stuck with the gouache; your technique has come so far!  Wonderful mastery of value to create depth in the background - not to mention that the background rocks!  I don't know why some artists hate doing backgrounds - I love adding all the details that the viewer only discovers upon closer inspection.  It looks like you do, too.

There is so much warmth and richness here in the hand-made quality of real paint and board with the hand of the artist in loving evidence.  Match that with the subject and emotions portrayed here and it just works perfectly.

This truly looks like it is from the Golden Age of Illustration, when real artists weren't afraid of gouache.  ;-)

These extreme perspectives are a real challenge.  I love how you so often have these dynamic POVs, Foxeye!

True, shading that arm will help but the real problem here is that Tide's right hand is the perfect size for being right beside her face (hands being approximately the same length as the face it tall even for elves).  Yet it is supposed to be coming out at us in the perspective.

This is why I often do preliminary sketches of difficult poses on vellum first.  That way I can lay the sketch over another sketch of a box/rectangle in perspective.  At different levels of the body insides the box, you can use the box to decide how enlarged that body part will be in relation to what is further away.  Does that make sense?

Nienna took a real chance with this image for the "Home and Family" theme.  This is thinking outside the box when everyone else is doing cuddly, idyllic domestic scenes!

Richard and I voted for this to be included in the Calendar; it is a powerful image and our reasoning was that not every character has a positive view of "Home and Family."  But there were three other judges and we were out voted.  

This image is just so creepy!  Good job, Nienna!

Thanks for the high praise, comparing me to Wendy!

This started off as a sketch for my own "Favorite Moments" calendar (along with the Father Tree centerfold from Full Circle and about six other images so far).  It would have got used for that Fan Calendar if Nienna hadn't come up with an equally good choice for the cover.  This is an actual canon incident from Hidden Years #18, page 7 and 8 on Digital EQ.

But I thought it worked fairly well as the cover for the Magic theme.  Covers should portray the theme in the broadest sense, here there are many types of magic going on - including the very broadest: elves as otherworldly creatures not from the WoTM.

Too bad I was pressed for time and never finished rendering wolf Timmain's fur.