AG Prompt: Jewelry

THIS IS FOR THE AG PROMPT "JEWELRY."
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Inheim flew through the air, his wings gliding gracefully on the cold winds. Smoky tendrils constantly streamed from his feather-ends, giving him a ghostly aura. They even faintly smelled of burning, but no harm touched him, not tonight. It was only the darkness that cloaked his form, nothing more, as the full moon's light illuminated his path back to the tyrant's keep. Finally, after so long a journey, Inheim had done it. He had stolen the amulet at last, the prized possession held firmly in his beak. Already he had sacrificed so much - time, effort, and patience. But at last, it was his. Perhaps now he would make his father proud...

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Okay before anyone mentions this - the grass is hand-drawn. Every strand. I'm just paranoid someone's going to tell me to quit using a brush when I'm not using a brush because it's happened before. Like totally no joke.

Anyways, I was pondering and pondering what to do for this prompt and actually considered several ideas. At first I was thinking, why not draw Yochrama? She enjoys decking herself out in jewelry. But I really didn't want to just draw someone wearing jewelry. Then I thought of drawing Xay and Sagacity together (and maybe Talor too), but then it would've amounted to the same thing - a character wearing a piece of jewelry. So I thought - oh! What about Sia'ino Aldakina? She can shapeshift into a ring and often looks like a mechanical horse. But... I just drew something relatively robotic for my last AG Prompt, Technology. Not only did it take a while (and I needed something I could cook up quickly since I'd still been on the ideas stage with nothing started), but also I didn't want to do something similar twice in a row.

Finally, it occurred to me that the character didn't need to be wearing the jewelry (or be the jewelry, for that matter) - they could be holding it instead. Okay, who would be a candidate for only holding it? Well I had a few thieves in mind (i.e. Rogue or Char)... but then suddenly I had the idea for this image. I think I remember hearing somewhere that crows / ravens / jackdaws / magpies / other birds had a tendency to steal shiny objects, and then I remembered that Inheim actually does steal a necklace in The Snow Angel, the second book of my Realm of Dreams series. So I thought, oh! Why not illustrate that? And I did.

This is back when he's younger and still tries really hard to please Kai (his father, although he acts nothing of the sort). After a while he ends up losing this desire for another one, however. The smoky-wing phenomenon comes from his Darkness element, which is actually what he uses to shapeshift into his avian form, not his vallen shapeshifting ability. (This is why he only retains his eyecolor and not the rest of the markings, you see.) He's meant to be a direct contrast to Sable, who turns herself into a white bird instead.

For the record, I modeled this after an American Crow, specifically, although Inheim's actual name means "raven" in my language. (Fun fact: his name used to be Ravengard.) He's named such because of his ability to turn himself into a black bird. Anyways, I had fun with this. I hope you enjoy. c:

Oh and, I did make some effort to make him a little iridescent. If you look closely there's purple highlighting and green shading. c: