Sprites!

Repost: Fabled Earth: The Art of Emily Fiegenschuh, Emily Fiegenschuh, http://fabledearth.blogspot.com/2013/06/sprites.html

Paizo Publishing has released the latest Pathfinder Player Companion, Fey Revisited , which means I can share the Sprite illustrations I did for the book, just in time to liven up my blog!



I was not surprised that I was hired to work on a book of fey, since I have been assigned creatures from the fairer side of fantasy for years: elves, faeries, baby dragons, horsies... Clients feel that my work leans towards the majestic or cute, rather than gross and scary. (Fine by me, since I can avoid illustrating zombies. I didn't like zombies before they were cool.)

A Sprite token.

Heeeeeyyy, quit it!

While Sprites may look enchanting and sweet, as most folklore will tell you, faeries have a dark side. Look, they're attacking poor Harsk and stealing his stuff! I tried to limit my palette on this illustration to give the forest a mysterious atmosphere. I think I did a decent job, but as always I see plenty of room for improvement.

Whoosh!

This was a challenging piece because I had to suggest a swarm of Sprites without conjuring an illustration that would take a year to paint. I'm not sure how successful I was at showing anything close to a "swarm," but hopefully one can guess that there are many more Sprites emerging from that tree.