Since I want to continue drawing Carter and his adventures around the world, this is the second piece of Carter's journey but my third piece to far. I personally believe this piece to be rather important since it shows the viewer (as well as myself, I'm discovering this world with the viewer) that this is indeed a fantasy world. Sure, it isn't medieval time fantasy or far into the future fantasy, but I prefer it that way. In fact, I'm starting to dislike the Medieval Age fantasy world trope, it's been done so often. However, since I do like dragons, they still exist, as you can faintly see in the background, but their existence is just tacked on. Dragons and all of these other odd creatures due to the way this planet was initially created as well as hints of a special kind of energy in the air. No one has been able to quite identify what it is or even how to use it, but it is known that it always these creatures to stay at huge sizes. But large animals aren't the only thing affected by this odd substance. As we will see later on, some forests have high concentrations of this stuff, causing the forests to be enormous. In fact, Carter uses this wood to make his raft, which in his mind is a fine vessel (the boat will get a name soon). Anyways, back to the piece at hand. I wanted to display this with different creatures. However, in the land of Valuft, lots of creatures are known to roam the skies and the seas, but the sea has less diversity due to huge creatures, such as the Leviathan that you see in the foreground, hogging up all of the space (both in the piece and in the ocean). One thing that I wanted to try to do was to have these mythical creatures be based off of different mythical beasts from different countries of Earth. The dragons in the clouds are inspired from Chinese dragons, but in terms of designs, I took a lot of inspiration from the dragons from the game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The dragons from the game clearly have CHinese roots: everytime that you get close to one, a song that just screams Chinese culture plays. I love these dragons so much, but I had to do something a bit different. I made the dragons represent things that some of the Chinese dragons represent: rain, lightning and thunderstorms and the ocean/large bodies of water. Of course, they're not deities. However, their very make up seems out of this world: each of them have a each element coursing through them. The dragon to the very left has blood (or whatever it has) flow as furiously as rain, the one in the middle is almost entirely made of electricity and the one to the far right has roaring seas within him. Due to these odd biological features, each dragon tends to bring their respective element upon the land. Of course, if you pray for them to bring rain it won't always happen, but it does happen frequently. The dragons and the whale don't have any particular cultural/historical tie to them, but most of the dragons in the background are wyverns (dragons that have two legs and their arms are their wings) as well as a insect-dragon hybrid (now that's something I would love to draw!). However, the big purple "snake" in the foreground is a Leviathan, a vicious sea-serpent. The ones described in Norse mythology seemed more like a combination of a snake and a fish, so I decided to look elsewhere for inspiration. I stumbled upon descriptions of Leviathans as told by the Bible and found some very cool details that are implemented somehow into this Leviathan. First of all, Death himself called these creatures "poisonous and clever", their one of God's first creations and they have a superiority complex. So in terms of being an ancient being, I made it huge and almost monochromatic to show that there isn't much to this ugly sea snake other than its size. This is due to me trying to make it simple since it is one of God's first creation. I also gave him arms so that he could spread tales of his sheer might throughout the lands. However, due to evolution, his arms have become useless in water, so overtime, his arms started fusing to its body, even if he could rip his arms free whenever he wants to. His arms and his dark purple scheme makes him seem poisonous, almost toxic to look at. Also, I like how his arms almost make him look like a cobra. Also. I don't like the fact that the purple is so dark because I didn't want to recreate Arbok (a dark purple Pokemon that is a cobra) but I think there's enough there to make it not look like an Arbok. Finally, the "islands" in the background aren't actually islands, they're the tips of Valuft, the peninsulas. The trees are so different in coloration due to the different creatures living in each environment. The viewer's right island is home to more vicious, savage creatures that darken the whole environment while the ecology of the environment to our left is full of life and mystery, full of pixies and other delicate woodland creatures. Okay, I think I've rambled long enough, onto the piece itself!

     One thing that I knew I wanted to do from the get go was to use color pencils. I knew that it create a very nice effect and really bring out the mystery and beauty of this world. However, I've been worried about using color pencils since the last project I did with them took too long since I was focused on making the blending "perfect". This time around, I've been trying to make everything look reasonably good and moving on the next thing. However, let's take a step back and go back to the rough drafting. Again, not as long as last year in terms of the drafts but it took me several minutes to come up with an interesting composition. Then, I found this general idea and thought it would be very nice. The dragons in the sky keep your eyes from running off of the page from the north and the Leviathan takes you back around to see the ocean and as well as the small part of Valuft that we can see. From there. I just started outlining everything in pencil and as soon as that was done i quickly started laying down the foundation in terms of color pencil. The water and the clouds are things that I've continually gone back and layered time and time again to really make it pop. Of course, it's still a work in progress but I'm almost there! Anyways, time to move on to judging this bad boy since I have a lot to say about it.

     Overall, I really enjoy this piece. The creatures are interesting but slightly unique as well, the colors are bright but not obnoxiously so and there's a lot of different things to look at. However, that's where some of my critiques arise from: there's just so much going on that I feel that the viewer gets overwhelmed. That's probably just me, but there's so much to look at that your eyes goes from one thing to the next without really "savoring" each element. A little bit off topic, but my dad would always tell me "Chew slowly so you can actually taste what you're eating" and I feel that with so much going on that you can't taste each individual "ingredient" or element of the piece. Not only that, but some parts are a little unpolished. That, and the dragons in the back have been getting lost into the abyss of blue that's known as the sky. And speaking of the sky, for right now, the sky and the ocean don't have enough of a difference in tone that it starts meshing together. I'm working on it, but I'm having slight difficulties. Enough about the negatives, I personally really enjoy Carter's "ship" since the wood looks very nice, very nicely blended together (I wonder who did that?). The shadow under the water, showing the Leviathans size is something I didn't think twice about but people have complimented it so I'm mentioning it here. Also, as small as that insect-dragon is, he looks reeeeeally cool and I want to draw him sooo bad, but I'll wait until we return to Valuft. Also, the Leviathan is just cool, I like him a lot. I can't think of anything else so that about wraps it up! Again, this is a piece that I feel good about and, as of writing this blog, I'm having fun finishing it.

     So now it's time to talk about this great piece. From the very start, I loved this piece conceptally and the composition is not bad. But with finally having the Leviathan in his full glory, he looks so fierce and powerful and the shading is pretty solid. And the coloration for the ship is really cool as well. Personally, I love the color for the wood since it looks so good. Also, the transition of the blue of the ocean as it approaches Valuft is really cool and executed rather well. Overall, the finished product is something I'm relatively proud of and It's a cool piece.