The Talisman

As of March 10th, 2016 I'm editing and posting the process videos for this (sped up. Painting takes ages!) here

Background story:

There were too many bodies pressing in around him, too much breath and noise, and the woman's teeth looked too white when she smiled. He could fee his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Her painted lips curled up around light words and jaguar teeth when she spoke. "It will bring you good luck,"

Somehow it sounded like a joke, and Marin had shifted from nerves.

The stranger pressed a charm into his palm and closed his fingers over it before she stepped back and faded from his senses. He'd stared until he was sure he couldn't see flashes of her skirt through the crowd of the market any longer, and only then examined the charm in his hand. A skull from some strange imaginary monster with dark feathers strung from it. There was nothing lucky about a skull, was there?

Almost two decades after he would still pull it out to examine in privacy, often after some strange disaster had befallen him. Somehow, he still wondered...

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Marin of the Rose Mountain temple. He originally hailed from Lapiniel, a land whose beliefs are as far-flung from the religion he serves as his country of origin is from Obsidnth. Whenever questioned about his motives for taking up the cloth, he only smiles and insists that his purpose is to ease suffering.

Why he couldn't do that closer to Lapiniel is anyone's guess except, perhaps, the high priest's.
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Original version here fav.me/d9u4nxr
High res versions with and without facepaint available on Patreon!

Art and Marin are both (C) to me