Drawtober 2019

I haven't been painting lately because my creative time is consumed by Drawtober.  Unfortunately for me, the Drawtober prompts have been arranged a little differently this year: instead of a unique drawing prompt for each day, there are only 6 drawing prompts for the month, and each drawing prompt runs for about 5 days.  I need more direction than this, so I have therefore decided to combine both the Drawtober 2019 drawing prompts and the Inktober 2019 drawing prompts into the same drawings, (although I will still be working in pencil). 

For example, the October 1 prompts for Drawtober and Inktober are "Witch's Garden" and "Ring" respectively, so I have attempted to draw a witch discovering a fairy ring near her garden.  The October 2 prompts are "Witch's Garden" and "Mindless," so I have attempted to draw the same witch defending her garden from mindless zombies.  And so on.

As of this writing, and using my prompt-combination system, I have created a drawing for every day in October 2019.  With the demise of Google+, I have created a Twitter account and posted my drawings there.  I invite you to check them out at: https://twitter.com/antonmarkwart . 

Many thanks to all of my followers!

Bones 2 Miniatures: Violet & Purple!

Scientifically speaking, spectral violet--the violet color wavelength you actually see in the rainbow--is actually one of the hardest colors to see because the rods and cones in your eyes don't respond strongly to the violet color wavelength.  The "blue" and "red" receptors in your eyes both respond to spectral violet, and your brain interprets these signals to mean "violet", which is why you can fool your brain with a mixture of red and blue light into thinking it's seeing "violet."

In color terms, "violet" is more bluish, whereas "purple" leans toward red.

Culturally, violet is the color of magic.  Purple is the color of royalty.  These are traditional fantasy tropes.  Famous violet & purple D&D monsters include the Purple Worm, the Violet Fungus, and the Shrieker.

Violet & purple are also my wife's favorite colors, so I asked her to pick out miniatures for this batch.  She came up with a mixed bag from Bones 2.

I talked about how hard it is to see violet.  Of course violet is a neighbor to the even harder (impossible?) to see ultraviolet (UV).  I decided to play around with UV-sensitive fluorescent and glow-in-the-dark paints, but it was kind of a bust.  Here you can see the same arrangement of miniatures, lit up with a UV LED bulb and a blue compact fluorescent bulb (which also radiates some UV).

Here are our adventurers, all decked out in violet and purple clothing.  In the rear we have a lady cleric and some kind of giant mushroom man.  In the middle there is a flamboyantly-dressed spellcaster, and a halfling rogue or ranger.  In the lead we have a flamboyantly-dressed lady with a staff and longsword.

Here is a giant wolf facing off against a pair of lions; from their violet and purple features we can deduce that they are infused with magic.

Here are some monsters, born into their violet and purple hues.  The turtle warrior and vulture demon guard the periphery.  In the rear is a dracolisk with its baby dragon.  The baby dragon reminded me of "Growf" from "What's New with Phil and Dixie," so I tried to color him appropriately.