Anita Illustrated: Flat Battery - Not what it sounds like!

Sooooo I had some time to kill this weekend so I decided to participate in one of the forum challenges over at ImagineFX.com. The challenge that really caught my imagination was challenge #329 "21st Century Warlock. I immediately had an idea of what I wanted to do.

The brief was as follows:

Magic is not only alive and kicking, but has also embraced the use of modern and near future technology. Show a warlock for the 21st century using both magic and technology to perform a magical ritual.

Now before we proceed I will clarify what a Warlock is precisely. A Warlock can be defined and is defined in some dictionaries as an oath breaker, a male witch practicing the dark arts or simply a magician and a conjurer. Because the challenge was to create a 21st century warlock I thought why not make the Warlock a woman, equality and women's rights and so on are very modern and 21st century. Now all I needed was to add some gadget or technology to the image. I already had the idea that I wanted a cell phone in the image. Everyone has a mobile phone and it's almost like a life line to the rest of the world. Most people feel naked without their phones. So what if the warlocks phone had died when she really needed it and she didn't have the ability to contact the rest of the world magically? Would she perhaps try to recharge her phone by pouring magical energy into it? How would she do it?

A ritual often demands some kind of symbol scrawled on the ground, a spell or some kind of arcane ingredients. I considered what a modern woman might have in her bag, and thought that in a tight spot perhaps a female warlock could use lipstick to scrawl symbols and pentagrams on the ground for a ritual.

I really liked the idea of it and went to work on the image.

Below you can see the process from sketch to finished image: