Darkness beyond blackest pitch. Deeper than the deepest night. King of darkness, who shines like gold upon the sea of chaos.

Here it is, my illustration for the first book in the Slayers book series "Slayers: The Ruby Eye". The illustration depicts the heroine Lina Inverse casting her most powerful spell the Giga Slave. The star icons around her are the symbols of the Lord of Nightmares, so no Lina is not Jewish, in case any of you were wondering.

Despite the troubles I had dealing with Painter and Photoshop I'm still really happy with the outcome. I did learn how to use a new brush, the glow brush. It is what helped me create the effect around the stars. I also added some traditional media in the background to give the piece some more texture.

I think what I liked most about this piece was the value structure I had as well as my color palette. Originally I had a very hard time deciding what colors I should use. At first my under painting was a deep navy blue. However, I decided to change it to a purple one instead. Good thing I did that, it really saved my piece. It allowed me to shift between the blues in the sky and stars as well as to the reds in her body. This way I didn't have to fight with my palette I instead made the purple under painting do most of the work.

Also, in case you were wondering the title for this post is part of the incantation for the Giga Slave. So in essence that is what she would be saying at that moment in the piece.

I would like to say more about this piece but it's almost 6 in the morning and I am very tired, and should go to sleep. So night for now and look forward to my Cinderella piece next. Nighty night.