Retro Revamps - By the Lake

One of my very first "proper" pieces of artwork on deviantART was "By the Lake," a picture of Tom Bombadil (my okapi character, not the Lord of the Rings character who I stole the name from).  By my modern standards it is very crude, ha ha, but you can view the 2006 image here: dreyfus2006.deviantart.com/art…

Anyway, after going through a lot of my old artwork, I decided it would be a good idea to pay tribute to my art's roots by taking the picture and bringing it into the modern era (of my skill level).  I drew everything and colored in Tom (including those ugly stripes; I instantly regretted my brush choice for them, I should have made them sharper) earlier this year, and then I never touched this picture after that.  I went through my unfinished projects last night and salvaged stuff, and when I came across this I decided it would be better to give this a background and "send it to the press" rather than keep it unfinished and just never come back to it.

And so here it is!  Tom, my beloved British okapi, back on the same lake that he visited 8 years ago! (good god I'm old)

_{Drat, I put the tree on the wrong side!}

Thomas Johnston Bombadil (c) Me