Forest Spirit

IF (Illustration Friday) 3/27/15, the topic was Outside.  It's been a while since I've finished an IF topic, or at least brought it all the way to completion.  I have several pending, but alas, time is a luxury.  For this topic I struggled as to what I wanted to do.  I wanted to keep it relatively simple, but I also wanted it to be something that I felt related to the topic, and satisfied my interests.  I finally settled on portraying the 'Forest Spirit' from one of my favorite Hayao  Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli films, Princess Mononoke.  In the film there is a deer-like creature that guards the forest (the main source of conflict for the story), and ultimately becomes an unwitting pawn in the story.  I wanted to depict my interpretation of the Guardian, which was more heavily influenced by the European Myth of the 'White Stag'.  I tried to keep the form solid while making the Stag itself appear ghostly, and mystical.  The piece is entirely digital done in Painter.