Being distinctly under the weather, and as a result off work today has at least given me a chance to get some scribbling done - took my mind off feeling blah as well. So all the better.

This is by no means finished - and will be shifted to scraps once I upload the finished version (snigger as if that will ever happen!).

Inspired by the song "Storm Cry" by David Arkenstone, I always had an image in my mind of some sort of ritual dance taking place while that song was being played, this taking place in some dark, secluded forest location around a roaring fire.

This presented a few problems - not least that I would have to deal with three dimensions, movement, and odd lighting effects. Lovely. What I needed was a reference. This reference was made by putting a rough approximation of the scene together in Daz 3D Studio. You may ask why I didn't just use that? Simple answer is that I wanted to draw it, rather than have the computer draw it - and the model didn't quite fit the description I needed.

Lots of work still to be done here (head, shoulder and tail in particular are a mess), the light source is actually at about 8 o'clock relative to the image - which is why some of the shading's a bit odd. Not only do I have shadows on solid areas themselves - things cast shadows on others - part of the wing for instance is in shadow of the torso, same goes for the tail - though the very base is not obscured from the light, so is in less deep shadow. If this does get coloured - it will be done electronically, needless to say.