Time for me to excercise my manga-realism skills again if I ever want to do this like the pro's. And when I saw =keelerleah's "Within the Elements" contest, I figured I'd be daring and make this my subject, even though I could have made a so much better landscape as my entry too, but that'll be too easy for me

By the looks of it, I am the first of over 50 entrants so far to choose "Wood" as my element from the given list. I deliberately chose wood since I knew it would be the least popular choice, so hopefully I'll put a good name for it and be an original entry Plus I think it suited me too, being a bit of a plant and nature lover myself. So I tried to make my own character that is based off the ancient element, someone who seems strong yet still and calm, like a tree itself, and limiting myself to natural colours that best fitted the forest theme.
The glowing effect following the rings in the tree stump he's on can be whatever your imagination wants it to be, But either way, it's some sort of hidden power within a seemingly dead tree that only this guy knows how to bring out

Now the technical details, this one is my second 100% fully Photoshopped deviation I've submitted in a row, I could have cut corners and saved a lot of time by making the forest in Vue 7, but I wanted a more artistic and "illustrated" look to this as with my other characters, so I just drew it all...I rarely get to say that I used no 3D, photo's or stocks at all and that it was made out of nothing, so come on - let me gloat
For reference in the pose, I looked at this photo [link] then just did the usual, drew it, scanned it and coloured in Photoshop. It's not perfect, but eh - a week and a half on the same thing is long enough. Hope you like it

Original character design and artwork remains the copyright property of my gallery. This artwork is not to be used, altered or displayed in any way without my permission