Winter Witch - Elis & Black Phoenix by @zenphoenixa (Annabel Lee)

Hmm, and next up is a birthday pic which is er, nearly four months late… O___o;; ::ohmygodfather:: I think the next time someone asks me to make a b-day pic for them, they’ll have to warn me at least six months in advance or something… or at least until my warped concept of time has rearranged itself. =P It’s the end of January already?!?!?! O__O

But without further ado, firstly this is Elis, one of my human characters who hasn’t made a public appearance in any of my internet galleries for maybe three or four years… (!) Part of the reason was because her design was never stable (as goes for all of my human characters actually), and she’s a character that I never really tried giving a background, so er, she’s been languishing for awhile. ^^; But even though I hardly ever draw my human characters in this sort of ‘upload’ format, I’m always doodling them on scraps of paper in my spare time giving them much needed makeovers and such, and Elis is someone I started working on a little while back.

The second significant thing about Elis (and two other human characters of mine) is that she’s the cartoon persona of one of my best friends, whom I specifically drew this pic for in the first place! =P Late late late The storyline I have for my human characters started when my two best friends and I decided to create personas for a storyline about six years ago – my persona is Analise (shown in my gallery), my friend Nicole’s is Nikki (not in my gallery in her new design, might be drawn very soon) and my friend Erica has Elis. Elis actually got a name change since she was called Courtney until recently, but it was a name that I never fully approved of and I got overruled. bleh Anyway, this storyline has gone through a lot of bumps and friction which I don’t particularly feel like talking about here since it got a bit ugly, but I’m now back in full control of the nine characters I created and it’s high time to feature one of them… ^^ In the storyline, to cut a looooong explanation down to about two sentences, there’s a Balance consisting of two trios representing Yin and Yang, and Elis is a member of the Yang trio. (Geez that’s short…) -__- This all happens in a contemporary environment by the way...

Since Elis was made based on my friend, they share a few loose similarities but aren’t exactly the same, so Erica (I know you’re reading this =P) your bad habits and such haven’t been included. ;) Personality-wise, the two of you are very different, since Elis is a distant loner who appreciates being left to her own devices and is the last person you could describe as social and welcoming… but just as you won’t tolerate being rubbed up the wrong way, Elis is just as unforgiving. XD You both practice self defence in your spare time and share an interest in the arcane… and that’s probably where the similarities end. To the rest of you reading this, my friend does NOT look like Elis in any way except for the Asian appearance and black hair, so don’t be hoping to run into an Elis-lookalike if you ever visit Australia. ;)

Like I was saying before, Elis has an interest in spiritual things but nothing captures her interest more than magic, which has led to her becoming a practicing witch as a past-time. This complements her naturally secretive and closed nature, and of course when you know there’s a physically and magically lethal girl living next door you have a decent excuse to feel a bit nervous… ^^; It’d make people even more nervous if they were to lay eyes on Elis’ ‘Ward’, or in other words, Soul. To cut an even longer explanation shorter, each member of the Balance I mentioned before is in tune with their Soul manifestations (called ‘Wards’), which are set apart from their physical human vessels on a different plane… in this case, Elis’ Ward is Black Phoenix. In the background of this pic, I attempted to make an emblem based on Black Phoenix, so er, look hard and you might see it! ^^; ^^; It’s a devilish bird which might have been a pure Yin embodiment if it hadn’t cast of its demon wings, so instead, it serves as the Yin embodiment of the Yang trio – Hence, that’s what the phrase below the image is referring to. ^^

On the image itself, I admit that I found myself somewhat uninspired when it came to choosing a computer background, and I only opted for a snow setting because Elis’ season is Winter. Creating that background emblem though took longer than the foreground, and my friend Erica will vouch for all the times I complained on the phone about not knowing what to put in the background! :D (We ruled out suggestions of a certain ex-boyfriend rendered headless.) >:3 Instead, I got a colander (or sieve) from the kitchen to make the circle shape, which of course led to weird looks from my family when they saw a colander on my bed, and the prize line from my sister: “What the heck are you doing with a coriander on your bed?!” ~ “Coriander? That’s a herb, you idiot!” ~ “Well then what is that thing?!” ~ “Anything BUT a coriander!!” ~ Zen then goes off to consult a dictionary XD

Some of the colours in the foreground got drowned out by the computer colouring and by scanning, so in case it’s not too clear, Elis’ hair is black but has purple tips and she has violet eyes. Anything else which doesn’t have colouring apart from black shading is in fact just plain black – no, I didn’t leave it half coloured! ^^; Overall, this was done with the usual felt tip for the black shadows, prismacolour pencils for the foreground, black ink for the emblem and Paintshop Pro 5 for the coloured background.

And so ends my rambling for another day, and hopefully I’ll be able to get one more pic done before my holidays officially end… sob T__T Erica, give me a call so you can come over and pick up the pic (heh heh, that sounded weird XD) and hopefully it’ll make up for the first two craptacular b-day pics. ^^;;;