I was in email with Yasmine Galenorn’s wonderful administrative assistant FairyFindings this morning, and in the course of it mentioned a couple of other renders that aren’t really part of the Sisters of The Moon fanart I did.  I promised her I’d dig through those rough drafts, and I came across this prototype.

Remember that old quote about interfering in the affairs of dragons?  Well, this character from the Otherworld series pretty much sums that up – if you’re anyone other than Camille, that is.

This is Smoky, or at least that’s the only name he’ll allow in public.  He usually goes around in a human form, with very – and I do mean very – flexible long white hair, and clothes that seem to never ever be in need of cleaning from their immaculate white condition – even right after a bloodbath!  He also happens to be soul-bound to Camille – eternally “married”, as is Morio, a fox-demon, and is very protective of her.

Did I mention he thinks he’s found a way for Camille to have his baby?

Dragons, especially cranky white/silver ones in the Otherworld universe, seem to be notoriously camera shy, and hard to catch off guard.  So the best I could get was this brief glimpse just before being reminded dragons don’t sign model releases, up close and very personal.  I also discovered dragons really need to try using mouthwash.  I’m just glad I found that out from the outside!

On the bright side, I told him that Fairyfindings said he should take any questions to her – after all, she is Yasmine Galenorn’s Administrative Assistant

Shy Smoky (prototype)

No postwork done since it’s just a “doodle”.

In seriousness, this one was one of those ideas I had that looked good in the dark recesses of my mind, but the product as it was rendered never matched quite what that mental image was.

One of the reasons I like doing non-human characters is it is harder to project emotions in non-human renders, and my mental image did that.  Trying to bring it into reality was just fail after fail, so I put it on the shelf for another time.  I never throw any of my prototypes away, in time something will click and I can go back to one and make it work, so this might just come out in the future anyways.

Never give up on your images (or your writing ideas for that matter), just give it time and let your muse come and slap you around the head a few times pointing you to how to make a “good” idea a “great” result.