Happy Holidays! (Patreon)

On Earth, December is a season of celebration and gift giving for many cultures, but for Tamriel, the month of Evening Star is curiously associated with the Thief constellation. When deciding what to do for this month's physical goodie, I thought it'd be fun to merge the two. So there you have it: the Thief as Santa. 

Here are a few progress shots as well: 

I began by printing my digital sketch and tracing it onto two blocks, one for the lines and one for the red tone. 

Carving! I drew the furry trim right onto the block. This was probably the hardest part to carve, as small details like this are a problem on the soft rubber. 

Then, the fun part - printing! Thanks to your generous support (and a great coupon at the local art store), I was able to buy a small baby hand press earlier this year. It saves time, effort, and a ton of wrist pain when printing a dozen cards. 

You can see a video of the print here. 

After that, I attempted to print the red layer, only to find that it was rather offset from my final lines, and registering it as a big block was problematic. So I decided to make it five little blocks, instead. The easiest way to get a perfect match is to print your lines onto an absorbent material (plasticard, in my case, since it's what I had on hand) and then immediately place the new block on it. I did this with the little cast of bits from the big block, and then carved and printed each individually. 

Finally, after everything was dry, I hand drew the constellation on with a dip pen and gold Winsor Newton ink, for that extra level of sparkle.