(click for DA version)

The battlefield was long silent when the Jester finally dared to poke her head up. It was a massacre, an entire army destroyed by a single beast. She carefully made her way across the field, stepping over the dead. She had no problem with this - she had all sorts of strange fears, but fear of death was not among them.

The dragon was not a dragon - the Jester thought it looked more like a mountain. It lay where it had fallen - in the center of the field, on top of a hill of crushed enemies. She wondered if she was the only one alive to tell the tale of this disastrous crusade. It sure seemed that way. She found a turned-over carriage and lit herself a torch. The night fell quickly.

It took her a while to find the dragon's head, for the damn thing was so big she started at the wrong end at first. The head was long and lined with teeth. Had she not known the battle had stood just the same evening, she would have though the dragon to be long dead; its brutal, eternal grin of a maw looked very much like a skeleton. Even the Jester, who tried her hardest to find good in things around her, had to admit the creature didn't look particularly pleasant at all.

It had a lance in its eye. The long weapon was broken, but had been jammed right into the corner of the black orb that the dragon used for seeing. The Jester knew nothing about knights and their lances, but she thought that whoever hit that tiny weak spot was either a true master or someone with blind luck. She was guessing the latter. She wondered where on the battlefield that lucky warrior now lay smashed.

Still, to think that such a small thing could fell something this big. "... But I guess having a friggin' lance in the eye is unpleasant enough to bring down even a dragon ..." she mused aloud to herself as she reached out to pat the huge head.

"Not quite" said the dragon.


An image in my Jester series. Story is from an idea I had some time back. There are two previous "Dragon Meeting Jester" images in my gallery on DA if you are interested.

Initially sketched in Sketchup Pro on the tablet, then painted in MyPaint and GIMP over a bunch of hours. There is some blood and gore there but I don't think it's bad enough to have to be rated mature (is it)? Feedback appreciated as usual.
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Griatch

Wow, what a picture. It's quite amazing.

Your image is really well done, and not very gory at all to me. The short story is also done well, with good use of adjectives.

Outstanding work Griatch!

Smashing! I wonder if she'll help a dragon out and remove that lance for him.

Good picture, nice story and an impressive gallery. I'm a dragon fan myself so it's nice to see a fair few of them there.

O_o looking at that lance in it's eye makes my eye hurt.
Well drawn!

griatch: i love it!! the composition is great and i think you've done a fantastic job of the lighting and the jester's pose and expression. another thing i really like about it is how you painted the back story of the bloodbath into the picture without overdoing it. i think it would have been an easy mistake to do - painting out all the details and loosing some of the focus on the main characters.
i have to say, though - my first thought was: "oh, poor old dragon! someone's thrown a lance at him!" even after taking in the whole picture and reading your (very well written!) text i still can't help feeling sorry for him.

Well done! I just had an eyelash in my eye, so I think I know how the poor dragon feels

Thanks for the comments everyone! It's interesting how many commenters feel sorry for the dragon. Maybe it's the jester's expression that does it?



Glad you like it! The gory bit is something I was experimenting a bit with back and forth. I had a lot more details in there, but in the end I fade most of it away under the "fog" so that most is only hinted at. As you say, it's easy to overdo detail like this (but the focuse lighting helps in this case). The story has been pretty well received; I wonder how easy the image had been to read without the short story to go with it though - I hope the jester's expression makes it clear she's at least not an attacker also without the text.



Thanks! As said, it's interesting how many feel sorry for the dragon.
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Griatch

Well, having role played and profiled characters of a villainous nature in the past (I like to write the bad guys) I can totally sympathize with this creature. You can always slap another tin can on a guy and hope for all the knightly best, but where will you get a whole new dragon if you need one?

Heh, where to find one indeed. I know what you mean, the dragon (and the jester too actually) were originally inspired by roleplaying characters I made for a play-by-post roleplaying forum. I find roleplaying them has helped a lot in getting their personalities down.
Don't feel sorry for the old beast though, he always has something up his proverbial sleeve.
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Griatch

I liked the story line as much as I enjoyed the creative painting Griatch.

Thanks lylejk.
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Griatch