SomewhereBeneathTheIslandWIP

PLEASE comment if you fave! I worked hard on this.

(Real title, "Somewhere Beneath The Island." )

All right, I'm going to try to take part in the 100 Picture Challenge, or whatever it's called here. Basically, you draw one picture each for one of 100 themes. I just started learning how to draw human faces about two months ago. I was going to hold off on entering the challenge until I'd gotten bodily postures down better, but figured that if I waited that long I'd never get anywhere. So I know I still need a lot of work. Maybe doing this challenge will help me improve, maybe not. I like to hope that maybe someday I'll be able to redo this picture and it'll look a whole lot better. For now though, it's much better than what I could have done a couple of months ago.

This (kinda) illustrates a scene from Part 1 of Return To Manitou Island [link] and is the theme of "Trouble Lurking." The scene included is kind of vague, so I'll just tell you now that this is the story's bad guy, Chakenapok, an EEEEEvil lost spirit trapped beneath Manitou Island, who decides to involve Charmian (the protagonist) in a nasty game of revenge against...but you'd have to read the story to find that out.

The top of his head looks so big as he's supposed to be looking downward a little. -_-; I'm not good with angles. That stuff around him is the limestone cave that he lives in, to further illustrate the theme that he's "lurking."

This is just the inked sketch. I'm planning on filling it all in with colored pencil, as that's the only medium I have, that and a photo program which mangles my pictures when I resize and try to up the saturation a bit. Really need a better photo program...

Anyway...the next theme I believe is "Tears" and I already have it inked in.

This will be scrapped later on when I upload the finished version. Just wanted to put this in my gallery to brag a bit. You can see more characters from this story in my scraps, BTW.

Criticism not desired as I already know all the flaws this has, thank you very much.

*****

For what felt to be ages upon ages, he awoke, slowly and gradually. It might have taken him a moment to open his eye; it might have taken a year. All he knew was that once he finally got it open...he was just a little bit late.

She was gone. The one whose energy he'd felt, who had prompted him to finally awaken himself...she was no longer there. The process of awakening had taken longer than he'd thought it would. Still, traces of her lingered in the air, and he could still sense her, not too far away. And so he didn't worry about her. One with much weaker medicine than his own had convinced her to come, so he could do the same. He had more important things to worry about first.

He opened his other eye, at last, and then attempted to stretch a leg. It took a moment or two before he could feel his body again; that was to be expected, considering how long he felt he must have been asleep. So much had changed since he'd last been awake. For one thing...

He paused and frowned at another significant change that had apparently taken place. The demoness. He couldn't sense her energy anywhere.

How much had happened since the last time he'd been awake?

He sent out a feeler, attempting to locate her. It took a while before he could, and he was surprised to find her sleeping, much as he had been, only not as willingly. Somebody had put her to sleep. Some medicine, stronger than her own, had done this.

He was impressed. The girl obviously had talent, to be able to do such a thing. He smiled to himself as he continued picking up on her dissipated energy. With each bit he learned more about her, until he knew her very thoughts as she had had them upon the Island. He knew how she'd come to be there, how she'd felt when she'd gone, how she was feeling now. The girl was smart, but she had a weak spot. He picked up on it almost immediately and his smile grew. It wouldn't take very much to convince her to come back, so he could see her for himself. Somebody powerful enough to put the demoness to sleep, he had to meet them personally.

After all, what was the point of waking up without a decent challenge to face? It had been a while since he'd had a good fight...the mainlander had proven she had a good fight in her. She'd been able to subdue the demon and save the Island.

He doubted she'd ever met anyone like himself, though.

Chakenapok is from Ojibwa mythology. Charmian (who Chak is thinking about) and Ocryana (the demoness) are © Tehuti.