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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