Beside the Fire

Description:

This one is almost purely copic free hand. I started out with a rough sketch of Stranger and his stump and the logs waiting to be burned. Then I simply colored him and around him to form the background and foreground and such. The hardest part was getting the colors in the sunset to actually flow nicely into each other. My solution were wispy clouds. In the grass, I used a bleeding marker to make that "grass" look. I wanted to see if I couldn't achieve it as a texture rather than as individual grass clumps. I used very little pen ink on this one, using it only to define layers and a few objects. Also, as for the smoke. He's smoking a plant called "King's Fancy". I doubt I ever mentioned this, but he comes from a particularly significant lineage in Ivoian history from which many heroes were born. That particular clan tended this plant, King's Fancy, which is able to prolong life up to half a thousand years. This was to solve the problem for time, because I wanted Stranger to be present in Bloodlust, which occurs two-hundred years after Wanderlust. Yes, the smoke of his pipe is blowing in a different direction than the smoke of the fire. Here's my excuse: His back was facing us and then he turned and sat down. This resulted in the change in the smoke's direction.