The Coming Autumn

EEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So this is the finished piece that was this sketched WIP -> fav.me/d6ormyo
This piece took about 4 hours to line and paint. Did lines for Essie in Corel Painter 11 then did the cliffs and grass all without special brushes (YIKES!), painted the sky then I gave Essie color and a luxurious mane. Then I put a few sunlight rays and put a shadow layer over Essie before moving the file to GIMP where I blended the shadow more smoothly and added highlights to her black pelt (velvety blackness XD). Then I added the vines and used a galaxy cluster brush to paint the leaves before finishing off with a couple more faint sunlight rays. XD 4 hours after a sketch in a nutshell. AND it is all done on the Computer! I am so stinkin proud of myself!
OK so it is late (2:36 AM - XD) and I am getting silly-goofy-tired and need to go to bed for work tomorrow. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy Esmeralda in all of her EBONY GLORY!!!! (Sorry couldn't resist. XD)

Night All!!!

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The following was all copied from the WIP version:

OK so I just had to share this. I am so exited about getting Esmeralda's plotting really going and this is the present in
I only just realized that Dusk has been (back) in Glenmore for almost a full year once the fawnling autumn sets in. She and Essie have been best friends for years and this is the second Autumn that Dusk has not returned to see Esmeralda (or will she?) as she did when she traveled the Western Isles growing up with her "mother."
For further background on how they met and possibly more detail about Esmeralda's home as I paint it, see this story. Its long at over 1000 words but I hope people enjoy it anyway. XD -> fav.me/d6oag8z

So things will be getting very exiting for my fawnlings. Hoping to have both girls have babies this next fawnling year. Essie is planned already but Dusk I am still looking. If you have a stag and are interested, see this journal. -> fav.me/d6o9nuk

Featuring: Esmeralda - fav.me/d5x2uf0 meet.


Esmeralda's Plot Journal -> Esmeralda Plot JournalMeet Esmeralda!

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Name: Esmeralda ("Es" or "Essie" to her family and very close friends)
Gender: Doe
Age: 6 years
Height: 9 hh
Type: Light
Use: Western Isles Mostly and in ARPG as a pet (Seperately)
Color: Black
Genetics: EE/aa/nSty
Sire: Unknown Oakfern Stag
Dam: Unknown Oakfern Doe
Born: Year 751 of the New Age
Birth Herd: Oakfern
Status: Herd Member/Hermit
Magic Type: Water
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Statistics
Fight Stats:
Speed: 6
Stamina: 3
Strength: 1/4
Experience: 1
Herb Lore:
11/20 - Medium Level Herb Lore
Magic: Water
0/10 - Basic Level Magic
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Relationships (Name, Color - Title, Location - fav.me/d602xey



Now Story Time!!!

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Year 757 of the New Age – Late Summer
Blackwood and Oakfern Border Territory

Essie sighed as she put her last pouch away for the night. It had been a long day of gathering herbs and making potions up. Autumn was coming and the herbs would soon be harder to find as the earth cooled before winter set in when they would be nearly nonexistent. She always stored up on all of her potions so she could not run out even in case of an emergency in the winter months or other fawnlings bartered with her for her valuable potions. She turned her face into the one of the more frequent breezes and wondered if her one and only friend Dusk the large Palomino doe would come back this autumn. She had come back through the Blackwood and Oakfern border territory every autumn since Esmeralda was two years old. She was now six years old and Dusk had never returned the previous autumn.
Her delicate features wrinkled in concern for her friend. She knew the large doe could take care of herself, but it wasn’t like Dusk to not come back. Anything could have happened to Dusk and with how she traveled the whole of the Western Isles every year, there was no way to locate the doe, even if Esmeralda could brave leaving the only territory she knew. She only hoped that she would return this autumn to sooth Esmeralda’s fears. Despite how she had allowed the rumors of her hatred of visitors and how much of a recluse she was, Essie had always looked forward to seeing Dusk again. She had never been as close to her own parents as she was to Dusk. Dusk was her best and only friend. She had loved hearing her tales of adventure and all the danger she skirted and the amazing array of fawnlings she had met in her travels.
Now it was approaching two whole years since she had seen her dear friend and she was feeling her loneliness like a physical pain deep in her chest. It was only after meeting Dusk had Essie came to see how lonely her existence was. She had never felt brave enough to approach others and had kept herself safe in her own personal mental cocoon of awareness of other beings. But that cocoon was straining more and more recently. She feared for the break she knew was coming. She shut her eyes tight as tears threatened. She felt how dark and dreary the loneliness was just like the Oakfern tunnels, she couldn’t help but think.
She opened her eyes to blink away the tears before turning to pass through her curtain of vines to enter her cave. She moved forward to walk to her bed of wolf and ice bear pelts. She moved this way and that before laying down and resting her head on specially piled pelts that served to elevate her head comfortably without straining her long elegant neck. She turned her gaze toward the fading light that filtered through the thick vines. The light was such a deep and pure shade of gold that she couldn’t help but be reminded of the beautiful golden palomino of Dusk’s coat. Her face pinched in grief before she squeezed her eyes shut as if to ward off the cruel world.
“Oh, Dusk please return to see me, I am so lonely and miss you sorely. Please come back or give me a sign from the world beyond that you have left my plane of existence.” She sniffed as she couldn’t help opening her eyes to see the golden light once more. “If you are gone, at least I have much to remember you by. I will hear your laughter in the singing of the wind, your exuberance for life in the way it makes the trees and plants dance, your pure heart in the light of the sunshine and that strange golden coat I found so unusual when I first met you in the setting of every sun.”
With that she closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep.


673 words


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I have another that will be following this very quickly I hope. Epic plotting going on!!!

Next Part -> fav.me/d6p2jcs