Continuing with my “archives” posts, here is another image from a number of years ago. I met a gentleman who was trying to start his own greeting card company. His idea; to create a line of fantasy themed greeting cards for non-christian holiday worshipers. He was a practicing Pagan and wanted to create cards with more of a seasonal “Yule” theme. Since I have always enjoyed fantasy art I was excited to take up this challenge.

The difficulty was in creating cards that were both seasonal, yet didn’t show Santa Claus or have religious themes. How do you make a dragon seem inviting? I leaned heavily towards the cartoonist side of things and came up with 5 cards in a series. All of these were printed, and several sold quite well for a few seasons. Two of the cards were popular on the site Dancing Dragon (now designtoscano.com).

The oringal line art for these cards were merely outlines with no solid blacks or texture line work as it was my intention to add all of the color and shading in the computer. My hope was it would keep the images light and colorful.

A group of Elvish-types who have gathered around a Yule tree. In the distance, a destination awaits them. A not so thinly veiled “Three Wise Men” tribute.