Mystic Tree Friends - All Trades and The Cameo by IskaMahika on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Next one! Right after I finished the previous one, I decided to use the time I have to finish this. And I finished it much faster this time. Yay me! Can I finish the rest before New Year? Maybe not, but I am having fun doing this. Can't wait to finish it before doing other artworks about them, and maybe do small animations of them.

This is quite the challenging one because I have trouble with the coloring. When I did the coloring for Lumpy, I feared that it looked too bland and no contrast. At least it turned out okay. It's the magical energy around him that was challenging when I tried to put a spectrum of colors in it. I searched for galaxies for color reference and turn out pretty well too. Funny enough, Truffles is the easiest one here.

Unlike the other artworks, only two characters are present here, and these characters where sketched in solo. So, I put them together here. Here are Lumpy and Truffles. And begin the explanation.

Lumpy's elemental magic varies all the time. One moment he uses an element, the next its the other. It would seem that Lumpy has control to all elemental magic. Well, if he would be able to control all of it. Knowing his personality, it hard to imagine him being able to control these many elements, as every Tree Friend should at least have only one or two elements in their repertoire. But in this case, its very different, and it is as unusual as the flying squirrel Splendid with his power. To be able to have so many elements in his disposal, including the ability to do from the most basic magic to the most advanced magic would have made him a formidable opponent. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have much knowledge on how to use it, let alone common sense towards the basics. At worse, he can be pretty klutzy, lethally klutzy. Others would say "why would someone like him have such power?", "why does he have it when he doesn't know how to use it?", "he is much too dangerous because of that power!". Just like Splendid, he was ostracized because of his power and incompetence. But if things start to get serious, well, that's where you'll see that he is graceful in his element, pun intended. He is much of a fighter like other Immortals, even more so with his wide array of elemental magic despite his common mishaps and foolishness. Some strengths just lie beneath the surface, and a little guidance is needed to bring that strength into the surface. I thought of him being able to do a lot of elemental magic because in the original series, it is shown that he is given many occupations to work and is considered the jack-of-all-trades, hence the title. Of course things go wrong because of his stupidity but there are times where he can be pretty competent and is hinted to have at least some intelligence. He just needed some common sense to be better. I designed him to be somewhat akin to "The Red Mage" from Final Fantasy, or Blue Mage considering he is not wearing red except for the sash around his waist, due to his ability to use many types of magic, and the staff he uses is inspired from Jack Frost's from Rise of the Guardians. Another part of his design is based on the tarot card "The Fool" from the Major Arcana, and quite fitting too.

Truffles have ice magic mixing with his vector magic. I thought of ice magic simply because of his color, but the vector magic idea comes from the fact that he wears a sailor outfit, and sailors are known to travel the seas while occasionally keeping a compass to navigate. That's why the compass circle underneath him, and the swords he uses are supposed to look like compass arrows, and that when combined, it becomes a glaive. He doesn't have much of a character in the show due to being seen as cameos, hence the title, but there are implications of what he is like. It is implied that his personality is supposed to be somewhat of a spoiled-brat and sort of a bully that nobody liked. Maybe in some way, he is cocky and prideful of what he is doing, to the point of being rude to others. Maybe that why not many Tree Friends know him so well. But somewhere there, he should have a good side as well, it's just difficult to bring that out. Some people speculated that he is rich because of his name. At first, I thought his name is supposed to refer chocolate truffles, then I realized that its also a name for a type of rare and expensive mushroom. Is he really rich? Who knows. Another thing is when he tends to pop in somewhere where we least expect him. In the original show, he makes brief cameos in the background, to the point that people say he's a stalker. Maybe he is just good at hiding at places where he would be that noticed, even more helpful with his vector magic. That is to say, he is hard to get along with, hard to approach to because of his vector magic keeping others away from him, and why he is so good at keeping himself hidden. Not much people would be able to get to know him, but many someday he will open himself up to others, just as a certain toothy beaver did with him. Not much of inspirations were used to design him, but the swords with the the mechanic of turning into a glaive is inspired from the main weapon used by Balder from Bayonetta.

That's all I have to say. I would need to take a break for today and tomorrow before the next one. Despite our situation right now, that shouldn't stop us from celebrating. And to end this one, Merry Christmas!!!