Decided to take a step back from my original idea. As I was working on it I couldn't seem to get it to work out how I wanted so I drew up some more concepts. I'm really loving on the one the bottom right so I think thats the one I will take to finish.

Redesigned my champion so the robes had a better feel. And I wanted to go for something that made me think more "queen of narnia" for a warrior of the earth.

Rough sketch! Leaving out a lot of elements at this stage so I can just focus on the character.

Blocked out the colors of the background and realized I didn't want the character dead center. That may help or hurt me but commit! Started doing some rendering on the skin and blocking out the colors of the hair.

Laid down more colors and started rendering the dress some.

So I've been so caught up in the "war" aspect of art war that I realized I was stressing myself out. I must have have drawn and done at least 10 more concepts trying to capture the true feel of "art war" but I realized in doing so I was drawing from a lot of things that just wasn't my style or part of my "brand". I was fully committed to walking away from this challenge but if I did that I would regret it all year. So I decided to try one last time. I listened to some music and pushed myself to not think but to just draw the sort of piece that was true to me and that I could have fun with. So here is my final concept for the challenge. I will be working on this for the rest of the month to hopefully present by deadline Wish me luck

I'm FINALLY truly happy about one of these. I have a lot more work to do on the background but this is where I am so far. Ideally I didn't want to spend too much time on it to start but I plan to have like a flood of spirits rushing from the swirl of magic. Almost similar to the bat demons from Anastasia

Just about finished with the base of the background. I want to add some more decorative embellishments a la baroque style later but right now I'm just concerned about getting everything shaped out and having the core done so I can start focusing on the character.

Finally rendering the character out now. I still have more work to do on the background but I just want to get the core done.

Render render, fiddling with the colors and planning out shading on the flowers. Started blocking out color on the dress.

Just a lot of rendering and detailing left, but hopefully she's finished soon. Fingers crossed!

Only able to work on this in hour sprints but its getting there. Just a little more before I can call the core of this done and then work on the extra details

Getting closer to finish. Asked for some advice about my color and values and got some good tips so I'm just working on fixing the lighting scheme and then I'll go back to rendering.

Did some more rendering and got some feedback. Did a lot of tweeking but I think I can call the background finished and move on. As you can see 90% of the rendering is done but I want to introduce a few more details to the character, tweek the rendering on the flowers and do something a little more interesting with the magic effects.

Seems like a lot but I'm confident I will meet the deadline and have something lovely at the end.