Elfwood is the worlds largest SciFi & Fantasy community.
- 119915 members, 9 online now.
- 28115 site visitors the last 24 hours.

User:		Password:
Not a member yet? Click here to join! (Help)

StartNew!Join UsPopularSciFi & Fantasy ArtStoriesTutorialsCommunityRulesAboutFindForum

SciFi & Fantasy Art / Gallery 1 of 1003 / Ursula Vernon / Picture 36 of 78 / Lit by Fireflies

"Lit by Fireflies" by Ursula Vernon

SciFi/Fantasy Picture 36 out of 78 by Ursula Vernon. ←Previous - Next→

SciFi and Fantasy Art Lit by Fireflies by Ursula Vernon

The idea for this painting hit me last year, when I was driving across the Great Plains at twilight, watching the fireflies turn on and off in the verge. The figure underwent a dozen incarnations--woman, bear, buffalo, coyote, all Significantly Archetypal, but none of which really worked visually. Much to my dismay, the gryphon DID work. The horror. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against gryphons per se, even if their recent Lackey-fueled popularity explosion has made them almost as hackneyed a subject matter as unicorns and dragons, which obviously I will paint with blithe abandon. No, my problem is that gryphons are a threshold creature. People start with a gryphon, and the next thing you know, they've got a were-unileotigradracoplatylycahippocaprigry-fox, as if, unable to bear that someone else's Frankensteinan chimera may have more Charismatic Mammal parts, they have sent Igor to the zoo with a bonesaw and a tube of superglue. I always wonder how these people feel about genetically modified food. 'My tomato has ragweed DNA to prevent aphids. Your character has six seperate genuses and turns two others if you add water or the full moon.' (I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get reamed for this.) Despite all that, I enjoyed painting the gryphon, even if I did wander around the house going 'Bird lips! Bird lips!' Anyway. I do like the fireflies, and now that it's done, if I ever manage to make the buffalo work visually, I can always come back in a month or a year and insert her...

Date	Name	Comment
29 Sep 2008	Heidi Hecht	Loading... Cool job with this...And I have to agree about the watchamacolum-fox. You start getting into Chimera territory if you throw enough animal parts together. And they wonder why I like to stick with basic winged-lion, winged-wolf, fox-dolphin things. It isn’t entirely Mercedes Lackey’s fault, either. I think she just did for gryphons what Anne McCaffrey did for dragons: showed them as being friendly toward humans instead of feuding with them.
11 Nov 2008	Ria Susan Witteman	Loading... i like how he is softly cradling the fireflies. i love the softness of the lines. what program did you use to draw it? is it hard to use?
21 Nov 2008	Arya Rowandale	Loading... i kinda dont like it...
24 Nov 2008	Joe Knight	Loading... reminds me of buddist monk somehome must be the calm feeling this image creates.
26 Jan 2009	Exian	Loading... a very, very beautiful picture, very calm and peaceful, the expression and the pricked ears lends one to believe the patient meditation has begun to bestow its reward upon the Chimera.
17 Feb 2009	Dragon Master Howl	Loading... i love it. plain and simple
21 Mar 2009	Lucy G Bert	Loading... The background is very lovely, I like how the fireflies trail back into the woods, but I think that a buffalo or coyote would work best for this. Don’t get me wrong, other commenters, I like gryphons, but this sort Points to picture is insanely overdone. The short stubby beak, the fluff, big puppy eyes, tubby body, humanoid expression- I’m sorry, but I don’t like it. If you want to do a gryphon, I think you should make it as tough and fierce as possible, not coat it in downy feathers. Also, it isn’t actually that original if you pick a random bird and a random mammal and glue them together. You need to mix ’em up and make your own beast. And, everyone else, for goodness sakes DON’T make your creature an ultra were-cyber-emo-mix of a billion different animals-thing. Ms. Vernon has an excellent point.
29 May 2009	Mello	Loading... i love it is is so cuuute
4 Sep 2010	Moncler	Loading... http://www.jacket-shop.com/Missing [/URL]![/URL]
5 Oct 2010	Anon.	Loading... Nice art, but I’ll propose another theory for the existence of gryphons: they’re modern dragons, in the same way that birds are modern dinosaurs (I’m actually writing a story that’s going to include this premise).
Page: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15