Before I even finished the world map, I know where I wanted to start off in: the jungle. I believed that a jungle would be a nice place to start messing around with perspective and with mediums. A big reason I wanted to start here was to show off a little bit of our main character, Carter DeReseinde. The idea for the name (both first and last) are rather simple. Carter is a play on the word cartographer, which is someone who makes maps and DeReseinde translates to "the traveler" in Norwegian, so when fully translated, his name is Carter the Traveler. Very simple, but I thought it was simple enough for people to remember but interesting enough to catch people's attention. Even though I don't speak any Norwegian and don't know how things should be pronounced, I personally pronounce DeReseinde in a French accent, since I'm French-Canadian. And to me, it sounds and looks almost like French, so I think I can relate a bit more to Carter. Enough about Carter for right now, this first piece within the world is somewhat since it establishes a bit more about the world. It has several elements that are similar to Earth, but seems a bit different. This jungle almost seems as if it was made by reptiles and for reptiles. So already this piece establishes that this world isn't 100% alien but it is odd. The next piece after this will throw all of this out of the window, but that's not the point. Also, I know I said I was done talking about Carter, but I wanted him to be somewhat muscular since he's exploring the world by himself, going to all of these potentially dangerous regions. At the same time, I want him to be somewhat thin as well since he enjoys sketching and making maps and enjoys making art as well. Making sketches and paintings are some of his favorite things to do. Alright, onto the artistic process!

     From the beginning of wanting to make this jungle, I already had an idea of how to lay it out: Carter walks through a jungle with no sign of human activity and he's surrounded by somewhat large reptiles all with their gazes on him. I also wanted the ground to be almost in a circle and have the trees extend from there. I also wanted vines to make it more jungle-like. I also wanted an angle that was higher than Carter's eye level, almost in the trees or as if a reptile was staring at him. After a little bit of rough drafting (a lot less than usual) I went straight to the final paper and went from there. I also knew that I wanted to mess around a little bit with mixed media, especially with pens. I then started with the trees, added reptiles at several places, drew an outline of the main character (Carter went nameless for a while, sorry Carter!) and then started to draw the trees in. I went in with some paint to have a base and kept going over it as I progressed with the rest of the piece. There were a few mishaps here and there but nothing that was going to end it all. And in terms of principles, I tried to have a good amount of movement by having the reptiles all over the place but still have a decent structure. The bottom vine helps direct the eye up the trees and to the top. The vines near the top are very important since they catch the viewer's eye from leaving the piece completely and coming back around. Though I didn't do a great at this, contrast was essential to keep everything from blending together. Also, I used the reptiles at the top to help with drawing some of the reptiles from the ground up but also to grasp how they're feet look like.

      Overall, I think this piece turned out pretty well. There are mistakes in several places, especially with the paint, but I think that adds to the piece a little bit. I would like to keep on shading the trees but, you know, I have other projects to finish. The angle was pretty bold but I think it created for a very nice piece overall. Some of the reptiles I'm really proud of and then others get lost in the trees. If I were able to redo this, I'd want to fix the issue of some lizards being one with the trees. Also, adding more elements of a jungle would have also been a good idea as well. But I'm happy with it, it turned out well and I've received a few compliments for it, which is always nice, even if I know it's a hollow compliment, but that doesn't matter right now. Also, after this piece, I do not want to draw any more forests/jungles for a while.