Valkyrie

The prompt was that we were given two words drawn from a hat. Mine were "signs" and "vibrant".

I chose to use vibrant as a lead in the color scheme choices and if you look through the rest of my gallery, you will see that this has been a step outside of my comfort zone. My main modus operandi is french gray and a gory touch of red. All I can say is thank the gods for color templates. xD Color was done in a mix of Photoshop CS6 and Painter 11 and took a good 15 hours since I have little experience in digital coloring.

I took the prompt for signs and ran with it. The title and symbolism is from Norse Mythology, illustrating the passage of the warrior's soul from the battlefield up to Valhalla and Odin's reign. The Valkyrie is charged to lead the souls to Valhalla and descend from the heavens to collect the warriors. The tree is Yggdrasil, which all the nine realms are branched out from. Jormungandr, the large snake coiled around the bottom is a symbol of Midgard (Earth), the large snake that is encircling the world so entirely that it bites its tail on the other side. When it lets go of its tail, Ragnarok will come and the cataclysmic end of the world. The scrolls just show the basic Runic language, with each sign showing a different meaning.

(c) Hannah Gregory