Butterfly revisited.

Back in 1993 I was given the task of painting the cover for TSR's "Women of Fantasy" Calendar. It was fairly successful cover and painting. I never know why one painting is more popular than the next. Whatever secret ingredient that was sprinkled into this particular painting is still a mystery. If I knew what it was, I'd dump it into every piece. Fifteen years after finishing the painting lamely titled "Butterfly Chick" I decided to paint another version. I painted very differently after fifteen years and thought it would be fun to see the differences.

I decided that "Mourning Butterfly" would have the same wings and that would be about it. I thought she'd be a hunter or warrior. She carries a spear that has a small Agave rope attached, much like a whale harpoon. She'd carry the bare minimum and the cloth wrap needed to go away altogether. Everything in the desert has thorns fangs or stingers. She'd get that caught on something and get killed. I thought she could be visiting a makeshift memorial of some sort. Maybe a fallen comrade, family member or a mate. The roses were left here during a previous visit and are dried from the sun.
Here is some of the reference I used and made. It probably wasn't necessary to have made the wings, in hindsight. But I built them to scale for roughly a GI Joe/Barbie Doll. The spear was devoid of anything man made. My location shot, an alternative shot of the model and I could not find the any of the photos of the dried roses. She has tattoos. Maybe a henna-like stain but I used more of a desert sage color.