Slagar the Cruel Portrait

Every breath you take

Every move you make
Every step you take
Slagar will be watching you...

Here is scraggy Chickenhound - *has a knife thrown at* -yaa! I mean, here is the marvellous, the almighty, Slagar the Cruel! Lord of Double-Dealing! The magical Luna Stellaris! Lord of Light and Dark! Master of Life and -
Monty Python crew: Get on with it!

Okay okay!
Lord almighty he took a while… I never want to deal with a harlequin pattern again!
As you can probably tell I’ve chosen to go with the same pose as the old painting, as I love that pose! I’ve also kept the hand and scarf. Slagar certainly is creepier than before. As I was rereading Mattimeo for some reason I got this sickly perverted personality to him stuck in my mind, not sure why, maybe because his voice is described as rasping.

His design has changed a bit, his eye is creepier and based on the drooping eyelids of Bloodhounds, for those types of dogs have always looked rather sickly to me. The clothing has received a much needed improvement and I’ve tried to make it look a bit raggedy.
Don’t ask me what’s going on in the background, all I know its windy, there is a fire going and there are some raven feathers floating around… hmmm, Kentucky Fried Crow anyone?

"A taker of slaves, and a thief;
I know not what master he served.
Cruel Slagar has come to grief;
T'was all that he deserved."
Slagar's Wiki Page


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Character from Brian Jacques’ book Mattimeo
Character Design by Myself.
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Cluny the Scourge Portrait

Fangburn whispered to Cheesetheif, “What use is a picture of a mouse to the Chief?”
Cluny heard. He came to the edge of the pulpit. Grasping the sides of the lectern he surveyed his small congregation like some satanic minister.
“Ah, Brother Fangburn, let me explain. I will tell you why it is that you and all your kind will forever remain servants, while I shall always be the master…”

Cluny’s Wiki page.

Well, here he is. My favourite Redwall Villain and favourite fictional character EVER, Cluny the Scourge.
My my my, how much my perception of this character has changed since I first saw him in episode 10 of the Redwall TV series when I was about 9/10 years of age and, to this day, I still have no idea why this character has stuck with me so tightly. If it wasn’t for this character I would have never gotten into Brian Jacques Redwall books and may have never felt that spark of inspiration, that “yes! This is what I want to do! I want to create, I want to imagine!”. I discovered Redwall in a time of my life when I was vulnerable and, when I look back on it, a quite frightened child, and I seemed to suckle from this book some courage and strength that pulled me through that dark time. Where would I be without this book, I shudder to think…the days before seemed like another life. Everything I am now I owe to this book and to this character, Cluny the Scourge. I cannot explain why, no more than a person can explain why they believe in a religion…it just happened, and I would not have changed it for anything.

Right, enough of that gushing girl, before you make everyone vomit!…

Being who this is I spent so much time trying to get things right and to transfer my mental image of him onto the canvas so this can deservingly be the best painting I have done to date, and I believe I have succeeded. I enjoyed painting this so much it was hard to stop.
This originally was going to be a big scene ( scene from chapter 12) with Fangburn, Darkclaw, Cheesetheif, Redtooth and Shadow at his feet. However, I thought that would make it stick out from the other portraits in the project so I cropped the sketch so I could focus on his facial features. Maybe another day I will get round to doing the whole scene (along with many others I have doodled in my sketch book), but for now it was best just to focus on the big guy himself.

*Lifts up a mug of tea* Here’s to you, Cluny, you maniac! Thanks for everything! And here’s to many paintings yet to come.

See also the full design on the stain glass.
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SPECIAL THANKS TO:

*Michael C Hayes and his painting “Miserere: An Autumn Tale” I learnt a lot of painting bricks and stone, my background would have looked very flat without me studying his gorgeous paintings.
*Todd Lockwood’s painting “Transition”. Again, I studied it for help on creating light shining around hair (or in this case fur)
* And, of course, to Brian Jacques! Your books -and this character- helped me escape from a dark period of my life and set me on my current path. You are my Tolkien and my inspiration!

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Character © Brian Jacques’ book Redwall
Character Design by myself.
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