05: Grindelia

Character Name: 
Grindelia

Brief Bio/Description:
Grindelia is a spitfire lion-dragon. She’s also very flirty, and doesn’t care about what race or gender – or lack thereof – you are. What matters to her, is character depth and interest. And intelligence. Like her great-aunt, the Sphinx, Grindelia loves riddles. She also loves deep philosophical discussions and ponders the great expanse of the universe on a daily basis. Her favorite beverage is orange-banana smoothies, and her favorite food is cream-cheese-iced brownies. She is so fond of the brownies, especially, that she has been known to forgive even the most extreme of grudges with a batch or two offered up in apology. She cannot fly, and envies her dragon-kin who can. Though few have hair as luxurious as hers, so she seeks solace in that fact and is known to be at least a little vain. On that note, she is sometimes plagued by worries about her appearance.

Style Commentary:
After seeing saulone’s great monochrome pieces, I wanted to stray away from color today and work with value and contrast. I also wanted to keep away from the aliens that have plagued my imagination lately, and also stay away from a humanoid character – so I got an idea for a dragon-like creature and went with it. I let my lines flow and grow on their own. Grindelia evolved organically from a roughed-in head shape, which grew a wandering neck, which perched atop almost-crossed arms, with a large hump of a rump behind her and a snaking tail to allude to her playfulness. I have not yet mastered the use of mid-tone backgrounds (I’ve got years of working on white paper with dark graphite) but I think this was a hugely successful attempt! If you have any suggestions or tips for working both additively and subtractively on a midtone background without going too crazy on either the highlights or shadows, I’d love to hear them!

Category: 2013, Fantasy