Gild-elf

Original DA Upload Date: December 21, 2021

🎵 I wish you a hopeful Christmas / I wish you a brave new year / All anguish, pain and sadness / Leave your heart and let your road be clear / They said there’d be snow at Christmas / They said there’d be peace on Earth / Hallelujah, noel / Be it heaven or hell / The Christmas we get, we deserve 🎵
Greg Lake (1947-2016)

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Geez, it’s already been over five years since Lake’s death? Which means it’s also been over five years since Keith Emerson’s! Damn, does time fly. Remember when we were calling 2016 the worst year ever? 2020 and 2021 have made me wish for 2016 back. At least 2016 didn’t have COVID-19 existing. And also we had a competent human being as president, and not a gross orange thing or Strom Thurmond’s goon.

Anyhoo, this is just an idea I’ve been wanting to draw for a while. Well, not specifically this, but more the loose concept. Since Gilda often has rosy cheeks when she smiles, I’ve for a while wanted to draw her wearing a costume where her cheeks would be painted red. Not just having her wear blush, but having bright red circles painted on her cheeks, like a clown or a ragdoll. I’ve tried before having her dress up like a ragdoll, but I ended up abandoning the idea somewhere down the line. But as Christmas approached, I decided it’d be cute to draw her as an elf. She already has pointy ears, so pretty much all else that needed to be thought up, was the outfit. And this is what I thought up. I knew a green and red color scheme was a must, as well as bells and curled-point shoes. But then I recalled seeing images of elves with red cheeks… somewhere. I didn’t remember where exactly, and I still don’t. But I know I’ve seen it somewhere. Anyhoo, the dubiously-accurate memory of seeing clown-cheeked elves let to me deciding to put the painted cheeks idea to good use, and have Gilda’s cheeks be painted red for her elf costume. I imagine she’d also put on foundation to hide her freckles; she wouldn’t want dark dots peeking out over the red circles, they’d ruin the look she’s going for.

Because I imagine elves being the size of dolls, I decided to also have Gilda wear big, voluminous false eyelashes, that resemble the eyelashes of a doll, like an American/Amareican Girl. I think they make her look cute, especially with the highlights in her eyes.

And of course, because Gilda is Gilda, and candles are associated with Christmas, I also drew Gilda holding a lemon-scented candle. As she’d tell you herself, everything is better with citrus.

Once again, I used filtered stock images for the scenery. However, I also put my photomanipulation abilities to the test. That fallen tree that Gilda is leaning against? The most prominent one in the frame? It wasn’t part of the rest of the scenery. And it didn’t even have snow on it; I drew that snow myself. Most of the scenery is a photograph I found online of the Canadian wilderness, but that fallen tree is taken from a photo I found on a website for a news station in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Wisconsin… I think I’m gonna call its Grunvaliverse equivalent ‘Whalesconsin’. I also thought of ‘Weasconsin’ and ‘Wiscoonsin’, but the former doesn’t sound punny enough to me, and the latter sounds too close to ‘coonskin’, and I’d rather not think of Gilda getting skinned, thank you very much. Plus, that latter name also contains a slur for a black person, and I’d rather not be mistaken for a racist.

It did take a bit of work to get the trunk to look like it was part of the rest of the image. Of course, I had to draw snow on the trunk, to make it blend in with everything else. I also masked out the side of the trunk that’s in the snow, and added a shadow, to make it look even more authentic. The colors were gonna be filtered as always, but I still wanted to make that trunk look like it was really there, not like it was a crude cutout placed on an image. For that matter, Gilda needed some effects applied to her as well, to make her look like more than just a drawing on a picture of the woods. So in addition to the shadows at her feet, I also added interior shadows coming off the sides of her asset going in, masked out the bottom of her right foot to make it look like it’s in the snow, skewed her asset towards the teal of the scenery, and I even added footprints in the snow to make it look like she walked over to wherever on Mount Hatcher this is. And yes, I did imagine this as being on Mount Hatcher, which means this piece is set in Hatcherwood or the outskirts of it, and not Grunvale.

Finally, I’d like to bring up the candle. While most of Gilda’s asset is skewed teal, I did apply a light, but large eraser to the teal block used to filter the asset, to show the candle’s glow. This glow effect shows the colors I used for Gilda’s asset, and I think the effect turned out quite well.

And that’ll be all for this piece. Happy first day of Winter, everyone, and until next time (probably the 2021 year-in-review), take care. Oh, and Happy Hannukwanzmas.

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Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 2160×2160 (aspect ratio 1:1).