What It Means To Be An Elf

    First off, I want it known that I am aware there is a lot wrong with this piece.  However, it IS an accumulation of techniques and learning in Photoshop and months of tireless sketching and practicing.  I have also been working relentlessly on teaching myself human anatomy, which is something I’ve never attempted, but have been practicing on for the last 6-8 months. I’ve dabbled in landscapes, but have never been too proud of how I’ve accomplished this. I am also a novice in painting in Photoshop. I frequently paint in acrylics, but learning to transfer those techniques into Photoshop has been a real challenge. I had help in the form of several tutorials by Stephanie Valentin and am truly greatful for her taking the time to make these lessons available. In short, this piece is a result of me practicing and working on all of these aspects for almost a year.

    My goal for teaching myself all of this is to bring one of my favorite fictional literary characters to life the way I see things in the books.  This character is R.A. Salvatore’s Forgotten Realms drow (dark elf), Drizzt Do’Urdern.  I have always wanted to draw him but have not been able to, because I just kept saying, “I can’t draw humans”.  Well, I grew tired of that excuse and thus began my journey to learn to draw people. Now, I have numerous sketches of this character from funny scenes to epic battles in the books on down to fan fiction art. However, I couldn’t really bring the works to life without color. I decided it was time to also embark on painting in Photoshop. Everything was new, and I was on a learning binge.

    I decided my first one would be the sketch I’ve had for a while of Drizzt and his human friend Catti-Brie, also a character of R.A. Salvatore’s.  They start out as friends, but, obviously it grows to be more.  This just seemed a lot easier to start with versus the sketch of Drizzt fighting Errtu, the demon balor. 

    This is basically a fan fiction art, but it is based around Drizzt finally getting over his fear of loving a human who has a much shorter life span than a dark elf, who can live for centuries. For years, the thought of loving and losing prevented him from ever truly coming to terms with his feelings for Catti-Brie. With the help of a surface Moonwood elf, Innovindile, he learns “What it means to be an elf”. I don’t want to get too much into that, I highly recommend reading the books. They are incredibly well written and are my favorite to read. I have grown to love all of the characters like family and hope to continue to get better in my drawing to make more pieces with the other characters from R.A. Salvatore’s Forgotten Realms books. 

    Drizzt Do’Urdern and Catti-Brie are not my characters.  They belong to R.A. Salvatore.

    The work is done by me.