Startled Majesty

Meet Jade (called after her eye colour). As you can see she’s a winged snow leopard. The idea behind the pic is that she came down from the more icy regions of her territory to enjoy some relaxing time in the sun, but that she was startled by some strange two-legged creature coming towards her during her napping time. Hence her pose: the upper body is tense, the lower half of her body is still quite relaxed, since I wanted to show she’s surprised, but still reluctant to give up on her comfy position. She’s now sort of trying to figure out whether the creature in front of her is enough of a threat to justify her getting up. I also tried to get this kind of inquisitive/anxious look on her face, but I’m not sure I succeeded.

Made entirely in graphite pencil. I started it in 2006 but then it got lost somehow and I just recently found it back and finished it. So the final finishing date is February 28 2009. If anyone’s interesting, the mountains are based on those I saw in Triglav national Park in Slovenia. The peculiar thing about them is that the bare rock is very steep and seems to spring up from the woods creating a very abrupt border between forest and actual mountain.
Hope you all like it.

The character Jade is copyrighted to me, please don’t steal.

The same character by [link]