A Small Drawing Inspired by Folklore Illustration

I bought a small multimedia drawing pad on a whim and I'm totally in love with it.

(Update form the future: this notepad returned in 2025 on the pencil drawings for Rite of the Final Passage and Sovereignty.)

The same weekend I bought it I spent quite a bit of time updating a personal playlist of dungeon synth music, and after several hours of looking at cover art and listening to music in that vein I was feeling inspired to try something a little different. I picked up the little drawing pad (5.5" x 8.5") and set to work with an idea to pull in some influences from folklore illustration and medieval engravings.

From that headspace came this image of the moon, an old lady, and her basket of heads.

The image felt considerably quieter and less aggressive to me than some of the others I've done recently, and something about the smaller format was remarkably freeing. I actually can't remember ever making a drawing this small, even as a kid. (My parents handed me a stack of 8 x 11 printing paper as a toddler and it's pretty much been that size and larger since then.)

I inked it up the following day and now I'm chipping away at color. Will likely try doing color both ways on it: with watercolors as well as digital. Color is still a problem I'm trying to solve, but one thing I'm certain of is that there will be more drawings this size soon.

(PS Check out the finished color version here.)