Paternal Darkness

"Child of shadow, cease your flailings. Come. Hide 'neath my wing, and I shall sooth your sorrows."


Look familiar?
...It's Ria's dark side.
I started with a quick, 5-minute sketch of a shadowy gryphoness in pencil that I did last night (this is the sort of thing I draw when I can't sleep O.o)... And I was just going to color the eye on Gimp... Then I noticed the gradient tool, and thought, "Gee... It might be fun to learn to use that and make that eye glow a little bit."
...But then, The white background looked really weird. So I erased the white and put a gray-tone.
...But the smooth graytone was boring looking. So I used the paintbrush to add some darker tones, and then changed the contrast on the background. Then went to paint some more, and accidentally selected the smudge tool.
Then I realized that it made it look like fog... And so I took that discovery and ran with it.

...The long and short of it is that I sat down to color one little part, and several hours of serindipity and experimentation later... I had successfully spent the morning not doing the Spanish I ought to have been doing.

A thousand awesomeness points to you if you actually read that whole story.

Aaaaanymawho-where-when-and-why....
Even though I was just goffing off here, any advice, tips, tricks, or criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for taking a look!


EDIT: Since it has been in the description for a few days now and I've only just noticed it... I hereby and heretofor declare 'goff' to be a new word for 'goof'! Yay for coining new words from typos!

Art, Ria, Shadows of Dawn, and all related characters (c)
Please do not use without my permission.