Native Spirits

Ok, so there's a contest that comes and goes every year that I've entered every year since elementary school and have never actually won. It's a "We love to Read" bookmark contest. They divide the results by age group and school, AKA there's a first place winner for juniors at Such-and-such high school and a first place for sophomores at such-and-such other high school.

I think the contest is rigged to tell you the truth. Seriously. Two years ago I should have won, but they decided to combine all the school so there was only one first place for our school and no second or thirds, either. And for only that one year where I had a really good picture. A person who was a year older than me won the contest that year. I wouldn't be particularly mad except for the fact that the drawing was not actually very good. It was an anime person who's face was slightly mushed and the nose was too big.

So enough of me ranting. This is this year's contest entry. Every year the theme for the contest changes. Last year we had animals and wildlife. This year is a Native American theme. I heard that and immediately had this mental image. I'm glad that it actually turned out.

I'm actually kind of disappointed by three things in this picture. One is that the man sitting behind the fire isn't entirely as clear as I would have liked and didn't turn out like the mental image I had. The second thing is the eagle which looked really good right up to the point where I colored it and it seems to have adopted a cartoony look. Finally, I had to use a reference pic for the wolf. I tried to do it free-hand. really I did. Finally during U.S. History I had to turn to my friend (the one that draws chibis all the time and doodled on my doodle one time) and asked her to do a google image search on her nifty cell phone for a wolf howling. It seems to have turned out well.

GAH I HATE DRAWING SMOKE!!!!!

So, I thought that this drawing was particularly clever since this isn't the style I normally draw in. I was drawing what I saw in my mental image. The clever bit is how everything that is in the reality portion is drawn with sharp, angular lines and dark colors, while everything dealing with the animal spirits is done in curvier lines and closer to my normal style. I also liked how my artist lines that I snuck in turned out. Happy me! It's good when I like my own drawings.

If this doesn't win this year, I might just cry.