This piece has a different kind of look than the ususal happy illustrations of Philbert. As you can see in my progress pieces below, I did consider leaving it as amore colourful daytime piece, but when I tried darkening it, there was no way back. I love the end result.
If you take a look at my earlier sketches for the piece, Nøkken is in the water, just barely looking out with his big eyes. However, I decided to go with the fiddle instead. I wanted it to be kind of understandable that Philbert wanted to go in the water, but then again, Philbert is a known dummy.
If I drew this again, I would probably do the colours in a different order. I typically colour the furthest part first, and move closer and closer, but here I do the opposite. I didn't really have a reason to do so, I just had an urge to colour this rock, and it went from there. Colouring the closest first is slightly more tedious digitally, because the layers always add above the old one, and you have to move them every time. But it's fine. I think the end result would have been the same. But that's kind of hard to say, as I didn't discover I wanted it to be as dark as it ended up until the very end.
My favourite thing about thie piece must be Philbert expression. He looks so determined to get to know this scary pond creature. I also like the creatures face. It is simple to understand as a viewer, but captures his agony. I was considering changing his fiddle to be something more natural. For example a makeshift one out of branches and leaves. My friend even suggested turning the fiddle into a frog! It was a great idea, and I would have done it if I kept it bright. But I am aware the typical viewer wont know who or what Nøkken is, and a fiddle already isnt the most common instrument, so I kept it simple. I'm also very happy with the small details in this image. I love the big frog on the right side, I added him as an omage to my image Philbert 9. There are so many details, and some of them might be hard to see since the whole image became darker, but I love to have things to discover in a piece.
As you might have noticed, I also added a mark on Philbert back. It is supposed to be a simplified dragonfly, and I ended up really loving the design. I want this design to be a memento of his mother, her symbol in a way. I sketched around a little before I made this one, but I love how it turned out.
This piece is inspired by the nordic folklore of Nøkken (in english Nix or Neck). It is a creature who represents the dangers of water. He plays the fiddle to lure villagers into the water, and can also transform into a white horse to lure children. The most famous image of Nøkken is the painting by Teodor Kittelsen, who I have a research page about. Go here to read that. He is a big inspiration to me overall, and takes a spin on old folklore. I have seen many of his works in person, and I have been at the lake where Teodor Kittelsen got his inspiration for Nøkken.
There is a similarity between this image and my Philbert 9 piece. They both feature a creature playing an instrument, both features are in a pond, and both features an ignorant Philbert who just goes along with it. However, I think there is a bit difference. The frog piece is about how the frog is singing a sad song in his frog language, and all the frogs can relate. But Philbert can't understand the language, so he just claps along and doesn't understand the bigger picture.
In this new piece, Nøkken is actively trying to lure Philbert into the water. And he's lucky Philbert isn't the brightest kid. Nøkken is famous for drowning his victims, which is why you can spot Peregrine running over to stop Philbert. The newer piece has an element of danger that overtakes the piece. It is very uneasy, and you are unsure of what happens next. I agree the images are similar in a sense, but they are definitely different pieces.