The Phantom Inker

This is Épiné. She lives in an alternate 1700s France, and is enlisted in the French army. Winged centaurs are rare, but they are prized in armies across the world, their ability to gather intelligence unmatched by any creature high or low. Swift and silent, they are the Kings's eyes and voice, observing battles and carrying messages faster and farther than any other creature dares. Épiné is young but patriotic, helping to defending her people against all threats to the realm: She may not be much of a fighter, but her heart and her wings beat strong for country and King.

(For those that don't speak French, "é" is pronounced like the "ay" in "day" — so a rough English approximation is "ay-pee-NAY." Her name doesn't mean anything, either; it's just pretty and French.)

I first started drawing Épiné in 2020, and I loved the lineart, but I dreaded finishing the picture because I didn't really want to paint the background, so she sat flat-colored for about three years straight. Along came AI art, so I pulled Épiné back out of the incomplete projects bin. I drew a rough background for her, with the colors and composition I wanted, then I made img2img repaint the background, then I redrew the parts I didn't like from the AI, then I made it paint the background again, and eventually after a few more back-and-forths, I finally arrived at this background. It has a French-mountains vibe, somewhere near the Alps, and it's exactly what I wanted, layout, composition, and colors.

Then I spent the last month or so slowly coloring and shading Épiné herself, and the result is what you see here. I'm pretty happy with her overall: I love her nervous but dedicated expression, the boyish charm but obvious femininity, and how she fills out the composition of the page. I really got her to pop well against the background, too, and I think I managed to match the angle of the sun pretty well in it.

This is very nearly widescreen wallpaper-sized. I'm not sure why I sized her picture at an aspect ratio of 11.5x7.5 (or 23:15, if you prefer), but 1.533 isn't too far off from the 1.777 of most monitors.

As usual, a stupidly-high-resolution version can be obtained via my Patreon. The DeviantArt copy is 1725x1125, but Patrons get 3450x2250, and it's definitely worth it for this one.