Fantastic City on a Strange Planet

 This is an illustration I did in 2012 while listening to Uriah Heep's Demons and Wizards LP over a period of three days..

The song "Rainbow Demon" on that album really seemed to open up a strange font of concepts and images as I sat and sketched, then traced in ink and then colored with pencils.

It is filtered here as my original copy is fairly beaten.

I am very happy with this image even though it's not high drawing, it seemed to take me away to a place far away and still does every time I look at it.

My favorite feature is the flutist- he sprang full formed from a place in my imagination and I could almost hear the music of his simple reed flute filling the bazaar amid the smells and sounds of the vendors and pedestrians. Edit: I also recall that he's a religious figure, a sort of traveling musician who lives a life on the road as a holy mendicant, a vow of poverty and the expression of the divine music through his flute.

There was a dash of Crowley in the robed figure, who is looking at his simpleton companion, a devil of sorts. Their insectoid companion might have had some Tekumel vibes to me at the time.

The girl is the only one I used a photo for, an...eh, not optimum rendering, I admit... of a lovely lass in a vintage magazine I had lying around.  I copied her free handed. The rest were all imagination.

The little creatures on the steps of the decadent temple entrance of a love and pleasure goddess seemed to me to be, as I drew them,  a common sight throughout out this ancient City. I felt like they were barely a step above rodents here to most, but for those who took the time to get to know them, they were mute empaths with healing abilities. They live in crooks and crannies and even the sewers and beg for food by day.

The original intent was that the amulet on the devil-figure was to match the sword belt adornment of the sell-sword girl in the alleyway. A hint of a shared path or common destiny. A soon-to-happen meeting.

I do know what the creatures in the cooking pot are named. They are Ooglots. Colorful rock lizards which, when cooked alive, are a popular delicacy. They are found everywhere in the bazaar. Poor things.

The centipede like creature crawling out from the blue skinned wizard's magical robes are also common, and they too are eaten by the very poor.

In the Temple entrance, a priestess and courtesan stands in the mist of purple smoke wearing a veil she will only remove for those who enter and make their offerings to the goddess and enjoy her blessings.

I admit to a bit of...." sympathy for the devil" ?  at the time. Maybe I felt like one a bit for various reasons. But I wanted him to look more like a poor fool and a pawn of fate than a truly bad guy.

It took me three days to finish the image, so the above reflections are from when I was drawing not, not any additions from my revisit.

It's only gaming related in the sense that I think it would be a glimpse into an awesome fantasy setting (but don't all DM's think that?).

I did write a short story inspired by the city in this image, and I have been trying to revise and edit it. It has the honor of being the only full story I have begun and finished.

Perhaps some day I can share it, maybe soon. It is named "The Death of Garjunga the Magistrate."

Anyway, I enjoyed drawing it and it makes me happy.

Cannabis may have been involved.