A very personal piece that I began at a friend’s house just after Further Confusion 2018… and worked on for three years before finally finishing the weekend of Further Confusion 2021. It features my Volcano Chimera character, Rhondi, with one of her dragon friends (who looks like a version of the Welsh Ddraig Goch, a reference to my pocket companion Dafydd). In the background of the top panel is Broken Top, my favorite of the local volcanoes, and in the top panel there is an adult pandora moth. These are our native moth that eclose ever other year in vast swarms. My first summer we had a bumper crop and they left An Impression. All around are the branches and cones of the iconic Douglas-fir.
I drew this as part of an exploration of myself in my new home, having evolved from a piece I did years earlier featuring the original incarnation of Rhondi—Drakendil, Friend of Dragons, the Mountain Chimera. I have it around here somewhere.
Ah, here it is.
The little wyvern is Corlie, one of my early imaginary friends. This piece was a bit retrospective—me looking back on my young imagination and bringing it forward into the present. But at the same time, I was moving into the future.
Incidentally, this piece also took months—and I didn’t finish it until I went on vacation to visit my friend in Oregon. My friend, who lived in a great little town called Bend.
Three years later, I was living there, too. The move was quite a change from my life in California, and while overall it was a change for the better, at first I felt like I was losing bits of myself I thought were intrinsic to my character. It would take a couple years before I finally felt at home—which was when I started the follow-up to this original portrait. Even then, as I said it has taken me three years to finally finish it, and in that time I’ve continued to grow. Perhaps, in another couple years, it will be time to do another. I am excited to see what that will be.
Two artists in particular I want to thank for their influence on this piece (and my artistic journey as a whole).
To Balaa, for her kind and loving heart and absolutely gob-smacking art that inspired me to start this portrait in the first place, my forever gratitude.
And thanks to Kittiara, who, while we ate froyo at Pittsburgh International Airport waiting for our flights home one post-AnthroCon, remarked how she found it interesting that my character was so monochromatic (black and white with blue eyes), while I was such a rich, warm, earthy person. She said something complimentary along the lines of “I see you as being lots of gilded umber and burnt sienna…”
After five years of reflection, I can categorically say that I agree.
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