Tarn has shown up for Halloo-ween

Here's a brand new sketch of a Halfland main character, Tarn, the half-crow woman just in time to wish all visitors here a Happy Halloween! She's a careful blending of human and black crow, split essentially vertically, with her human side visible on her left with it's flesh instead of feathers. Her hair is raven black, long and wavy, tied in low bundles to keep the strands from her face on that side. She's seen here without her typical jet black beaded veil headdress that covers her eyes. Her slick black feathers will mesh her flesh so that one won't be sure if she's a human wearing a feather cloak or a crow whose feathers conceal a human form.


The Tarn character symbolizes deep and permanent depression, the kind of black sticky profound sadness that knows no other reality. There's no terrible cause for it, no any cure per se, it's simply her existing in constant melancholia regardless of circumstances. It's her way.

This new sketch is based on an accidental image I caught of myself as I was photographing a necklace I had made. My bare face profile is not something I have seen too much. My own self image doesn't look like this to me, the nose so strong and the chin so weak. My life long self view of my face has been one of grotesquery that in no way measures up to the view of beauty prevalent in the culture in which I live. I have come to a peace with that by expanding my own definition of beauty to include a broader range of visage. And by focusing on what I do that's interesting more than how I, or anyone else, looks.

I exaggerated my features and melded them into a crow's silhouette to really intensify my feelings about my facial features. In Halfland, there are many many odd looking creatures, all of which are accepted fully for what they are in total. There is no sense of ugliness there, only what is, and all of it appreciated.

Boo! xoxox