01 – Catches-the-Moon
Catches-the-Moon is a folkhero of the Great Auks – as the first of her kind she came into the world devoid of food and so her people starved. Through trickery, she got the moon to send his children to the seas, where they became fishes which Catches and her people could feed on forever. Catches-the-Moon eventually died at a great old age and became a sometihng akin to a guardian spirit or a minor Goddess to her people.
Forever however, was of course a finite thing - the Great Auks of course became extinct and now Catches-the-Moon is a Goddess of a species utterly vanished from the world. Not just no longer believed in, but not known by a single being in the world. She drifts through the seas aimlessly for the rest of time, with no people and no purpose.
A slighty delayed first piece, a holiday to Spain prevented me from getting much done, although I did spend the plane journey coming up with a few characters ready to illustrate. Hopefully I’ll manage to do 2 characters a day enough to catch up.
2011 Challenger: Alex Holt
Hello!  As the title of this post suggests, my name is Alex Holt, and I currently live in Northamptonshire in the UK. I’m a “Game Art Design” Graduate from De Montfort University in Leicester and while I’m not (yet at least) working in any kind of artistic job, alongside some paid work to get by, I do have a project or two in the works to hopefully change that. My hobbies, in addition to painting, include wildlife photography, reading, writing and overthinking things.Â
As an artist, these days I tend to use photoshop for most of my work, although I should really get back into the habit of using traditional mediums a bit more.  Some of my main influences/favourite artists include Justin Sweet, Caspar David Friedrich, David Mack and a range of others.
I found out about the 30Character30 challenge last year but had missed the signup deadline, as I thought it sounded like a fun challenge. This year I managed to get signed up nice and early, although I’m going to have to deal with being away on holiday in Spain for the first 5 days of the month – hopefully, if I bring along a sketchbook that will at least give me somethign to do in the airport and on the plane.Â
My aim is to create a group of characters who aren’t necessarily all big dramatic heroes and villains, but are interesting characters that would fill out the background of worlds, while still being weird and wonderful in their own right. I’m considering writing a list of everyday sort of jobs beforehand as starting points with the aim of creating interest on a foundation of normality.
Finally, here is a pair of recentish works just to give people an idea of my normal sort of style.
#30Characters Chatter…