Well, I’ve been getting pestered by my family members to paint some Christmas cards and I have been trying my damn hardest to convince them I won’t. I had this cringing notion that they would want me to do sickly cute angels, robins, winter scenes ect ect ect… but I’ve been given freedom to do what I want (hell! They ain’t paying, so they get what they get! No complaining, haha!)
I was going to tease them and paint this Wendigo sketch (as I was reading up on the myth and felt inspiration kick me), just to spite them in a ‘I ain’t painting no cute robin’ sort of rebellion, but my mood improved.
I was brainstorming Christmas-y stuff when I came across Santa’s nine reindeer.
( By the way, why, in the media, do these reindeer never look like reindeer? Why does a fallow deer with red deer antlers seem a better design choice?…and also why do they still have antlers, male reindeer shed their antlers by winter, only female reindeer keep their antlers…. Why am I questioning the logic of flying deer? ) Their names interested me and evoked a lot of imagery in my head, more than any other idea I jotted down, especially Donna and Blizten (which means ‘Thunder’ and ‘Lightning’ in the Germanic tongue). Even Rudolf has a strange name, the name has ‘wolf’ as part of its meaning. A deer with ‘wolf’ for a name, that’s curious, it’s like naming a mouse ‘cat’. 
So this is Comet, the one I wanted to do most (for unknown reasons) the celestial reindeer. I had a lot of fun painting this. That space scene frightened me a first, but I found it quite fun. John Howe’s gorgeous Tiamat/Dragon of Chaos painting and Terryl Whitlatch’s Nebula ( sorry, can’t seem to find an online link) were great inspirations.
