Mythical creatures by Kerby Rosanes!

My coloring book Mythomorphia by Kerby Rosanes has arrived, and the pictures are awesome. They feature mermaids, gnomes, kitsunes, dragons, phoenixes... any critter that has featured in stories from long ago.

Many of the drawings are double-spreads, but I chose to start with a single-page one, to warm up.

Harpy. Drawing by Kerby Rosanes, color by Amy

A harpy, from Greek and Roman mythology, is a rapacious monster described as having a woman's head and body and a bird's wings and claws. It is often depicted as a bird of prey with a woman's face. The word can be also used to describe a grasping, unpleasant woman.

I picked a palette of blues and greens for the feathers, and used my white gel ink pen to give some highlights to the tips of the feathers. Yes, colors can be too raw at times, like for the teal colors of the feathers, so I toned it down with some warm grey at 70% saturation. 

I decided against giving her human skin tones, since she does look evil. A dark greyish tone seemed to me to convey her other-worldliness better.

I quite like the way the feet turned out... yellow like most bird feet, but given more depth with orange on one side to convey shadow. 

Stuck for the color to use on the harpy's helmet (or is it supposed to be the beak?), I asked the family. R said "red" but I went with orangey-red instead, since orange is a complementary color to blue. Worked quite nicely. 

The tree and leaves were quickly done after that. I went with a yellow-green for the leaves, rather than a blue-ish green, which wouldn't have provided enough contrast with the main subject. 

The two hidden objects here were the axe and a goblet with lighted candle in it. They are too small to expend that much time and energy on, but I tried to convey metal surfaces with the use of contrasting tones.

Then there is the matter of the background, which I have left white. I posted this work on my Instagram feed with a question: Is this a WIP, or can it be considered finished with a blank white background?

Someone said it's a WIP. Another person said it's finished.

The expanse is a bit too much work for me to color in the background. But I have seen the payoffs from the effort. Some color pencil enthusiasts really do a lot of work on the backgrounds of pictures they color in, going so far even as to draw extra elements in.

Goodbye, Johanna Basford, hello, Kerby Rosanes.