Outersketcher-The Artwork of David Church

Been working with the guys over at The Tiki Machine on their new book.
The theme for this one is on "Deities". Kinda cool.

There will be two of my illustrations in the book. I wanted to do something from the native American peoples (specifically the Navajo) as the subject matter for the first illustration. Black Yei is my current favorite. Basically, he's the guy that's in charge of the stars and constellations, and he's the one who invented fire. The story goes that he used to keep the constellation of the Seven Sisters tied around his left ankle. However, whenever he danced, that star cluster would fly up from his kicking feet and smack him on the left brow. This happened so frequently, that he finally just had the Seven Sisters constellation mounted to his brow permanently.

I like the gentle humour found in many of the stories about the Navajo deities.

Can't show the final piece, but I can show you a rough sketch. This one will be digitally painted. I want to have the flame glowing with warm, yellows and oranges, while the stars glow with blue light. If I can pull it off, I also want the eye holes of his mask and the Seven Sisters star cluster to glow with the same star light. He IS a god after all.