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Description
Okay, this is the finished version of the sketch I posted a couple of days ago (which has now been duly moved to scraps: [link] )

I'll write a few words about the process of inking and colouring the thing first, and then I'll try to explain where on earth I plucked this idea from.

Inking the outlines wasn't particularly eventful, although it did take a while because there's quite a bit going on and there's many twiddly little curly bits. I was contemplating putting the outlined version up somewhere for people to have a go at colouring themselves, just for a giggle, but I haven't done it yet - maybe I'll do it later, maybe not X3

Colouring the picture was another matter entirely. Just putting the base colours on took ages, and then I fiddled with the outlines and broke half of the base colours in the process which wasn't the best of starts. I couldn't decide on the style to use, and every time I experimented with a new one I'd quickly discover that it looked awful and get quite demoralised. In the end I managed to settle on this style long enough to actually get somewhere; the stupidest thing is that this was my first attempt at colouring it, which I threw away and then was subsequently quite relieved that I didn't do a very good job of throwing it away after all.

The colours are a bit on the sketchy side, but I don't think it shows *that* much and it would've taken all week to colour if I'd tried to tidy it all up to a fairly high standard. I think it has a bit more personality looking a bit rough anyways. I will get the hang of this paintering thing eventually.

The story behind this picture actually goes back a year or so. For some reason I was reading about various different systems for elements, since I find the whole idea quite fascinating for some reason. At some point I thought it would be interesting to have races of elves corresponding to the chinese elements, since it would be a bit more unique than the usual "ooh, dark elves and wood elves and stuff" - so I ended up with metal, wood (just can't avoid wood elves, it seems), earth, fire and water.

So, at the front of this picture, from left to right, there's a wood elf (actually made of wood, just to be different), a water elf and a metal elf (which always seemed like a cool idea - for some reason pokey metal hair is just inherently cool, even if it reminds me of the evil sonic robot from Sonic 2). And then at the back, there's an air elf and a fire elf. Ah, yes, spot the "deliberate" mistake - I got muddled up and used the element of air instead of earth. I always thought that the relationship between air and fire was more interesting anyway (fire needs air to survive, but big gusts of wind will blow it out altogether).

And then, for the background, I tried to do something kinda stylish and generic, yet in keeping with the guys in the foreground... so there's some trees (wood), clouds (air and water), a whole load of fire (I think someone's getting a bit excited) and... a cooking pot, because I needed some crude hack to work metal into the pic.

I think I've written enough about it now anyway. Hope you like it

(edit: softened the lines - no more big chunky black stuff!)

Description
Okay, this is the finished version of the sketch I posted a couple of days ago (which has now been duly moved to scraps: [link] )

I'll write a few words about the process of inking and colouring the thing first, and then I'll try to explain where on earth I plucked this idea from.

Inking the outlines wasn't particularly eventful, although it did take a while because there's quite a bit going on and there's many twiddly little curly bits. I was contemplating putting the outlined version up somewhere for people to have a go at colouring themselves, just for a giggle, but I haven't done it yet - maybe I'll do it later, maybe not X3

Colouring the picture was another matter entirely. Just putting the base colours on took ages, and then I fiddled with the outlines and broke half of the base colours in the process which wasn't the best of starts. I couldn't decide on the style to use, and every time I experimented with a new one I'd quickly discover that it looked awful and get quite demoralised. In the end I managed to settle on this style long enough to actually get somewhere; the stupidest thing is that this was my first attempt at colouring it, which I threw away and then was subsequently quite relieved that I didn't do a very good job of throwing it away after all.

The colours are a bit on the sketchy side, but I don't think it shows *that* much and it would've taken all week to colour if I'd tried to tidy it all up to a fairly high standard. I think it has a bit more personality looking a bit rough anyways. I will get the hang of this paintering thing eventually.

The story behind this picture actually goes back a year or so. For some reason I was reading about various different systems for elements, since I find the whole idea quite fascinating for some reason. At some point I thought it would be interesting to have races of elves corresponding to the chinese elements, since it would be a bit more unique than the usual "ooh, dark elves and wood elves and stuff" - so I ended up with metal, wood (just can't avoid wood elves, it seems), earth, fire and water.

So, at the front of this picture, from left to right, there's a wood elf (actually made of wood, just to be different), a water elf and a metal elf (which always seemed like a cool idea - for some reason pokey metal hair is just inherently cool, even if it reminds me of the evil sonic robot from Sonic 2). And then at the back, there's an air elf and a fire elf. Ah, yes, spot the "deliberate" mistake - I got muddled up and used the element of air instead of earth. I always thought that the relationship between air and fire was more interesting anyway (fire needs air to survive, but big gusts of wind will blow it out altogether).

And then, for the background, I tried to do something kinda stylish and generic, yet in keeping with the guys in the foreground... so there's some trees (wood), clouds (air and water), a whole load of fire (I think someone's getting a bit excited) and... a cooking pot, because I needed some crude hack to work metal into the pic.

I think I've written enough about it now anyway. Hope you like it

(edit: softened the lines - no more big chunky black stuff!)