Here is my entry for the very talented 's art contest [link]

My entry is based on angel mythology, although the name Ariel appears several times in the Bible(Isaiah 29)- Most commonly as another name for the City of David(AKA Jerusalem), and never actually as the name of an angel. Very few angels are mentioned in the Bible by name.

The name Ariel means "Lion of God", which is where the main inspiration for this piece came from. Ariel is an angel of healing and new beginnings, hence the green plant sprig. I left the wings rough for now, as I wanted the figure to be the main focus...same reason for no background. Also, I tend to enjoy an asymmetrical element when draw clothing, so I made his gloves different to add some interest. Also, his hands are white intentionally. Since he is a lion figure, I wanted to avoid having all of his skin be the same tone, so I chose to make his "claws" lighter than the rest of him.

Links to close-ups:

HEAD-[link]
ARM-[link]

Done in photoshop with my Wacom Graphire 3, no refs were used, except for 's tutorial on Hanagumori. Excellent tutorial! This was a HUGE learning curve for me, since I am not very familiar with using digital media, but I gave it my best shot.

It took me a total of about 31 hours to do, and to meet the deadline for the contest, I worked on it for 21 hours solid.

I know he still needs a lot of work, but I am pleased with what I was able to complete in the amount of time I had available. I plan on continuing to work on the original piece as time goes on, as it is a full body drawing, I was unable to complete the whole thing in time. As you may or may not know, we have bought a house, and are moving. All of my traditional equipment is packed, so I had no choice at all but to do a digital piece(and as I have said, I am not all that familiar with this medium). I had given up at all on being able to enter, but inspiration hit me, and I had to try

My brain is pretty much toast right now, and when I close my eyes I see pixels lol. I hope you all like it. I have never worked so hard on an art piece in my life.