My half of a trade with the most talented Psuedo Manitou. I was given the task of creating my interpretation (or one of them) of the word 'manitou' which is a word used by northern native americans meaning spirit animal.

At first I was fleshing out a concept for a wierd eagle thing which always has this six-eyed mystery mammal skull over it's head (which oddly was the first thing that came to mind), and I just got bored and made designs all over it. I thought it looked cool enough to follow through with the actual piece, so I polished the design a bit. I do wish I had the skill to make this look good in illustrator, but I followed through with real media this time.

Watercolour, coloured pencil and india ink (all three of which I used to get that stark black) on 10 1/2" X 13" smooth bristol. This concept will become a character in the future, now I have some cool ideas for him/her/it.

Image and concept copyright to Katie Hofgard ( almost mistyping my name 'horfgad')