Art Interlude – Swamp Monsters

Hello, Everyone!

At the close of the latest chapter of our Mary Windfiddle story, I present you with another of my colouring attempts. These two images are from this and this chapter, and they were a lot of fun to colour.

Innitially, I drew both illustrations in pencil on my small Sakura notebook. The Shambling Mound (on the right) was first and it was fairly easy, because I used a picture from the official D&D lore as a visual reference. As you can see below, I didn't strive to be too accurate in my depiction but I think it turned out pretty well in the end.

The second illustration, the unnamed weeping creature (homebrewed by our DM), looks a lot simpler than the Shambling Mound but it was tougher to draw since I didn't have a definite reference. My search history can show my attempts at finding the right one ('cloaked figure', 'dark cloaked figure', 'creepy cloaked figure', etc.) but I ended up using multiple pictures as a base for the creature.

However, when I finished, I realised that there is a problem with having two pencil pictures on the same spread - the moment I'd close the notebook, they'd smear all over each other. So, I had to colour them. I used my old watercolours which I've had ever since my university days (more than 15 years ago; this shows how much I've used them, doesn't it).

With both pictures, I faced the same problem - I had too many layers of colour on top of each other and it started looking too saturated and even muddy at places; so I used a technique my teachers showed me back in the days - washing away all the excess colour with a clean brush of water. I don't have photos of that step but it did wonders to the final pieces. I touched them up with a fineliner, and they were ready!

So, I present to you...

The Shambling Mound

and
The Weeping Creature

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I hope you like them!

See you next time when I'm going to enterntain you with a side story about Mary's past!
Take care and be well!

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Episodes of Mary Windfiddle's story come out every Monday and Thursday.
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide, the Glossary and the Map for the series. You're welcome!)

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^{An important disclaimer: Mary Windfiddle's story is my notes from a D&D game turned into a narrative. All the worldbuilding and NPC encounters belong to our DM, and all the actions of the other main characters (Aurum, Bruno and Agatha) belong to my co-players. My contribution to the story is only everything Mary-related (actions, reactions, inner thoughts), as well as the writing itself.}