This post was originally posted as a YouTube video. Below is the transcription straight from the video.
Hi and welcome, friends. If this is your first time here, my name is Tiffany, and I'm the international witch. Today, I'm going to be continuing my Grimore series, and I'm making a page on the German cryptid called the Wolpertinger. If you're interested in how I made this page and downloading it for yourself stay tuned. Again, I'm going to use the Daler and Rowney oil paints, and I'm going to be using round brushes in the numbers three, four, and five.
You won't be able to see it, but I did do a layer of white on the bottom of my painting just so that the paints would hopefully blend together better. Now the Wolpertinger is known as a combination cryptid, and that is because it is a combination of multiple animals. It is part rabbit, part squirrel, it has the antlers of a deer, and it has the wings of an eagle. You may be wondering, 'why in the world did I pick the wolpertinger?' That is because my husband and I were blessed with the opportunity to visit Germany this fall, and as we were walking around Munich, I happened to look over at a shop that was selling clothes, like jackets and hats, but it had a stuffed taxidermied animal in the window. And as soon as we saw it, my husband goes "oh my God, what in the hell is that?" I posted it to my Instagram stories, and one of my followers (big shout out to Stephanie) actually lives in Germany, and she told me what it was. It's a wolpertinger! So, that is why I am making this grimoire page, because I wanted to learn more about this unusual little cutie. If you're from the US, then you might be familiar with the wolpertinger's cousin, the Jackalope. The jackalope is exactly like the Wolpertinger, except it doesn't have wings.
I knew early on in my concept planning that I wanted a drastic difference between the body and the wings. I wanted you to definitely be able to see the difference, but I went back and forth on how I wanted to do the wings. I thought at first about maybe doing a gray rabbit and doing like peacock feathers, but I thought that would just be making things way too difficult on myself. So I finally decided on doing the rabbit's body in gray and white, and then doing the feathers in brown and white, almost like a hawk. I kept trying to make it look realistic when I was sketching things out, and I was getting frustrated because, obviously, I couldn't make it look realistic. I'm not that good. And then I just kind of threw it all out the window, and I thought "you know what? This is a fun creature of imagination and I'm going to lean into that."
So, I started looking at World of Warcraft. And look, I'm a longtime World of Warcraft girly. And I love the Druids. And if you're not familiar with World of Warcraft, there's a class called the Druid class, and they are creatures of the land. They love the land. They worship the moon, and they have the ability to turn into animals. And why I was really drawn to them is that when they turn into animals, they don't look realistic, and I love that. Blizzard didn't try to go that way. When they change into animals, they come with armor and jewelry. Like, you can tell this is not a real animal out in the wild. And I kind of leaned into that. That's what I wanted to go for. For this Wolpertinger, I'm picturing her as a bougie, shapeshifting, beautiful fae girl. So not only am I going to give her jewelry hanging from her antlers, but I also decided to wrap her feathers around, almost like a boa, and give her jewels around her neck. Because, once again, I mean, she's not real. She's a beautiful, fae, bougie babe with just a tiny bit of diva-ish. Think of a beautiful Yzma.
The next bit of painting that I'll be doing is an under-painting. I was really intimidated to even start this project. That, you know, perfectionism coming in. I kept wondering if I would even do it right. If I would make a mistake, and that kind of had me in a holding pattern where I didn't even want to start. But, eventually, I had to tell myself "just get paint on the paper." With oil paint, if I don't like it, I can go over it. I just need to get something on the paper. So, all this black is not only to outline where I want everything to be, but also act kind of like a background shadow. So that whenever I draw the feathers on, any areas that I miss will look like it's part of the feather and, uh, shading instead of just blank white space. I think that the most intimidating for me is just seeing a paper full of nothing but white, but as long as I can throw something on there, I can tweak it, add, and build upon it. But I just need to get the paint on the paper.
It's taken me a lot longer than I would like to edit this video, and that is because I have not one, but two of my neighbors are doing renovations in their homes and this has been going on for like at least 3 weeks. So, I am hearing nothing but drills and chisels, and, oh my God, they had a jackhammer in there for a while. Every single day between 9 and 5 in the afternoon, so I have to hurry up and do as much voice-over as I can before the next round of hammering starts. And the apartment building that I'm living in, like many of the others in Naples, is made from cinder blocks. And while that's very sturdy, there is no soundproofing insulation in between units whatsoever. So I can hear when people play their radio. Obviously, there's always the apartment walking. You know, you can hear your neighbors walking above you in steps and everything. But it's almost like it's echoing the damn drill. I'm trying to edit out as much as I can but if you hear any construction noises in the background, I'm really, really sorry! For these feathers, I'm doing a mixture of the burnt umber and yellow ochre, with white and black. And I'm just mixing different ratios, and just as you can see, just putting strips here and there, just to give it almost a multicolor effect. I'm not trying to be specific. I'm not trying to imitate perfectly an eagle's feather, or whatever. I just wanted it to be very colorful and fun and different than the rabbit's body.
I feel that I kind of messed up here, because I wanted it to look like there were shadows underneath her neck, and I kind of just made a blob. I should have let everything dry, and then maybe came back and did, like, a glaze or some sort of transparency. But it is what it is.
Typical Wing coverts, which are these little feathers that I'm drawing, are usually not as intricate as their longer feathers. And so for these coverts, I don't do too much, but I do add shading and a couple of lines just to give it a little bit more depth. [Music]
I think I made the tan ridge of coverts, up here at the top, a little too wide. So, I go through and try to separate them, but it's not that great.
Throughout the video, you'll see me going through and getting this rabbit darker and darker, and I keep adding colors to it. And that's because, while it looks okay on this paper, I know whenever I print it out on my tea-stained paper, white doesn't print. Like, there's no white ink in your typical at-home printer. So all this is going to be extremely light. So I go through and darken it, especially around the edges. Because I want it to be more of a gray rabbit than a white rabbit. And that'll help it show up on different types of media, so no matter what you decide to print this out on at home, it should show up for you.
For the jewelry, I use yellow ochre to look like citrines, and I use my Micron 01 pen. However, if I were to do this again, I would much rather use the yellow ochre for my chains to look like gold chains and then use blues and greens to look like emeralds and sapphires. I don't think the yellow, brown, and black really worked here. I wanted it to look more magical than it does. So, that's my only drawback. You can also see here in the original painting that I did not add whiskers to the rabbit, and that's because I knew I was going to be scanning this in and altering it digitally. And that kind of gets lost whenever you start scanning and deleting and moving things around. So, I went into this knowing that I would add the whiskers in post-painting. And here's a closeup of the final painting, and all the details ready to be scanned in [Music]
And here we are in Photoshop, ready for digital manipulation.
[Music] and as I've stated in my previous videos, "Yes, I understand that the newer versions of Photoshop have an easier way to remove the background." But I'm working with Photoshop CS4, which was uh 2007 or 2006 when it came out. So if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's worked for me all these years, and I refuse to go towards a pay-for-month system. [Music] Now, I'm setting everything up on the grimoire page, and you'll notice I'm doing everything on a white background. And that's because I print out on tea-stained paper. I know some people will download an antique paper texture to put on the back of their pages, and it'll print out that way. But I find that's a complete waste of ink. I don't like buying that much ink, so I would much rather print it out on pre-stained paper. if you would prefer that I add an option to the grimoire section with the page already on a textured background, let me know in the comments. This is just my preference. And speaking of printouts, if you don't already know, all you have to do is click the link in the description below that takes you to my blog, and sign up for my newsletter, and you will receive a code in your email to access the grimoire section of my page. And that gives you free bullet journal printouts every month and free grimoire sheets.
Since this cryptid is a German folklore, I thought it would be cute to add the German crest in the background just for a bit of texture. Now, when you print this out on white paper, it shows up a lot more than it does on the tea-stained paper. on the tea-stained paper, it looks more like a watermark. And now it's time to print it out and put it in my grimoire. If you enjoyed this and got any inspiration, then make sure to give me a thumbs up. If you want to see more videos like this, then hit the Subscribe button and leave me a comment down below, and tell me what you're looking forward to see. Love you! Bye!
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