More character sketches - ArtFight 2025

Fairies, chickens, Middle-Earth and more...

Hello all!

Here’s the next round of character illustrations that I drew during ArtFight. I’m especially proud of these pieces, because I think I managed to capture each character’s essence.

Trying out a new, rounded felt-tip pen (characters belong to @grynnly_)

Using the same pen only five days later…you can see I’m more familiar with it by this stage and able to get a larger variety of curve and line strength. Although I failed with the fairy’s wings — they’re supposed to be delicate and moth-like, but they look more like misshapen putty, woops! xD (Character belongs to @raishistudio)

Lighthouse keeper Winderemere dancing with his wife Elaine (also belonging to @grynnly_)

Vengeful elf Sly Bastion (belonging to @enjoliquej)

Two Nordic fantasy characters for Russian artist Alice Karelski

And lastly my absolute favourite character (and the drawing I enjoyed doing the most, so relaxing): Créa, a Dúnedain ranger, one of the Grey Company (these are the rangers who come to aid Aragorn in The Return of the King, the third LOTR book).

If you ask me, it’s a crying shame they didn’t include the Grey Company in the movies. Haldir the Elf and his company arriving at Helm’s Deep is supposed to be a replacement, and sure, that’s fine, but . . . . . . *grumble grumble grumble*

Anyway. Créa is an invented character with a fantastic lore and backstory, establishing large gardens for the Rangers to keep their food & medicinal supplies well-stocked, and helping to build up the ruined cities of the North after Sauron’s defeat and the age of peace under Aragorn. (So much untapped story fodder there, really! A whole society operating in the forgotten fringes of the darkening Wilds and somehow keeping themselves fed and clothed, haha.)

She seemed a contemplative sortof wanderer to me, so it was a chance to slip into Middle-Earth for a few hours and peacefully draw:

Créa of the Dúnedain tending her gardens in Evendim. (Character belongs to user Dunadaan)

That’s all, folks! Hope you enjoyed seeing more of these.

Also, I’m halfway through a vanishing fore-edge painting of the Pied Piper. Did you know there is supposedly a historical basis for this fairy tale? Including an actual street in the town of Hamlin, Bungelosenstrasse (“street without drums”), where no one was ever allowed to dance or play music? Fantastic and terrifying!

Updates on the next fore-edge painting to come in the next month or so. :)

xx The Inky Baroness