The Apple Thief: Zhar-Ptitsa

Based on the old Russian Folktale Ivan and the Firebird. Its always been one of my favorites, if you haven't read it or any of the variants such as the one by Mercedes Lackey I highly recommend them.

Now I did take artistic liberty but I did manage to stay relatively true to the story, IE the Firebird (Wikipedia tells me it was originally ember-bird which is the direct translation of Zhar-Ptitsa) was said to be golden in color (I did add some red and blue for variety but since they are common in the Russian art I have seen I felt like that was fairly acceptable) like the apples it steals. Its supposed to glow also like fire (Originally I did do that more obviously until I found that adding an aura in glowing metallic paint nozed up the entire thing so I had to black it out.) I also gave my firebird feathered ears which is not cannon but they looked cool so they stayed, that and I was guessing on beck/feet/eye color so those are all mine also. The pic is at night because the firebird stool its apples at night so that about covers it.

The scan really does not do the actual picture justice, it looks a lot better in person and my photo editing skills are limited to make it resemble the original. But I think its okay enough to show to everyone. Oh yes I have no idea where the faint vertical line on the right side came from it just magically appeared in my scan.

-Gouache, scanned and edited


*****

Did some more editing and I think I finally fixed the color, will have to check when I get back home but it looks a lot less messed up now.