Wren on Morrowindl (Shannara)
Hmm... I'm noticing that I have stated that I don't love the idea of making a lot of fan art and that I, in fact, do not produce a lot of fan art, but the density is initially kind of high with Bad Poetry. Before long, I'll end up generating more incepted material and thoughts that inform and inspire my dreams generationally in an emergent way.
This is another Shannara scene inspired by the master of Fantasy/Sci-fi Terry Brooks. The book is The Elfstones of Shannara, where Wren Ohmsford an heir-apparent to the dynasty of Elves who had fled the known world and settled on an island that is succumbing to the wrath of magics that conspire to erase the people of magic and wonder from the world. Here Wren is making her escape from the doomed island called Morrowindl by firing a magic beacon into the sky, so that her friend a, Roc Rider, may rescue she, allowing the safe transportation of her lost people by way of a secret talisman she was entrusted with.
This image feels like another failure, unlike the previous image 'Punk Magic,' which is a failing of inspiration, emotional investment, and timing/planning, I feel this one is something I care about and enjoy greatly, but is an example of me biting off more than I could chew.
I tried to plan this one out for the effect I wanted (girl sending light out something in her hands, lighting up the darkened terrain in the darkening sky).
I got the contrast closer with the ray of light against a dark background than in Punk Magic, but the directional property of it was not well captured.
The island itself should be collapsing dramatically to tectonic and volcanic forces (There is a poorly defined mountain/volcano erupting smoke in the background).
I got a decent pose for Wren, though her proportions are skewed small below the waist (She should be a tall, lithe, sexy lady of the forest who gets business done, as a perhaps knife-throwing Rover on the continental lands)
Ty, the Roc riding warrior/messenger, my memory fails me, is a pretty lazy silhouette that isn't interacting well with the light given off by Wren and her Elfstones, which are also missing from the image (the bird almost looks cool, but the size and the lack of definition make for the equivalent of a hand-drawn muddy pixel-noise mess of definition that would be solved greatly with some extra effort and attention)
I don't recall if she was to escape the island by clifftop or by beach, but it looks like neither. I did not make the effort to render the sense of scale and perspective that I required to capture the moment of this cool-ass story.
She is also exhausted as she was being pursued by the magically mutated creatures-turned-fiends and contaminated and subverted former allies and a straight-up demon or two. All of which should be closing in on Wren, about to close in on the Elven Rover girl. (I did no work in designing anything of the plight that our protagonist is being directly antagonized by. Worse yet, rather than excluding things like that entirely I threw some shitty-looking limbs and claws on the fringe of the frame near she). So I end up adding stuff that actively subtracts from the overall composition more so than if I were to omit such elements altogether.
Altogether, the failing of this painting is a matter of my lack of planning and investment in the design stages that I would typically engage in. Unlike Punk Magic, what makes the lacking parts painful in Wren on Morrowindl is that I actually like and enjoy the subject matter I was trying to recreate, and to this day, I feel like I've let it down and myself along with it.
I should probably revisit it and just do it justice so I can sleep at night.
