Earth Astride Mars

John Carter of Virginia, about to brain a young Thark warrior, while Tars Tarkas, Tal Hajus, and Sarkoja look on -- not-quite-straight from the pages of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars

My original intention was to have the lovely Deja Thoris, having just been knocked to the ground by that big, mean Thark, viewing the scene from the ground (with Sarkoja holding her by a chain) but I gave up after a few attempts to draw her in. The result of her omission, I think, is a far less interesting illustration. The lesson, to all you young artists out there is: plan ahead. This drawing was sort of slapped together, piecemeal, and isn't as good as it could have been because of that.

It grew beyond the piece of paper I started the drawing on. What you're actually seeing is one piece of paper with two "wings" taped onto the sides. But can you see the seams? Heck no! I made sure to hide 'em real good with the ol' computer.

For those of you that saw the WIP version of this, you'll notice that I went with a cel-shaded sort of coloring this time. Why? No particular reason. I'm just used to doing things that way. Fact is, this would probably have looked better with a pseudowatercolor treatment, but I was too lazy to do it that way.