Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art

Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

Basically, these are my thoughts on the art of Elfquest from Original to Final. Not going into detail about the other artists even Sonny as Wendy is the master.

Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

Original Quest= This was her greatest peak throughout the whole saga. From the crude drawings of the first few issues to the conclusion of the Palace War. The influence of Art Nouveau and pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was obvious and body differences notable from delicate short Dewshine, full-figured ShenShen/Rainsong, tall willowy Winnowill/Savah and slightly shorter but still willowy Clearbrook. Nightfall and Leetah's hourglass figures with robust Kahvi and ballerina like Aroree. Same applied to the humans as any scene with a large amount showed all types from fat to skinny.
Detalis were at it's greatest as well. One could tell with the humans, from the austere simple Gotara worshippers to the heavy embroidery/decorations of Blue Mountain humans. Same applied to architecture and background scenery.
Coloring and inking were at her finest as well.

Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

Siege at Blue Mountain= Here's where things begin to change. A lot of detail was lost and the art looked rougher. Coloring got simpler and the Fairy Art feel of Original was not there.

Kings of the Broken Wheel= Not much of an improvement at all. The coloring and inking slightly improved, but you could tell Wendy was gravitating towards a set body-type for stock elves.

Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

Hidden Years= Excellent coloring and a return to the detail of Original Quest. I'm only going as far as Wendy's art here. I do appreciate Ember being very slender and flat, but she still had the tendency towards same-body for background characters.

Wolfrider!= Good inking, a tendency to same body.

Dreamtime= Had potential, but same body syndrome. Ironically the monstrous humans in Nightfall's nightmare were some of her best designs.

Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

The Searcher and the Sword= Interesting design for the Iceholt humans, but the digital drawings/inking/colorings felt off. Designs were simplified and detail lost.

The Discovery= Roughly the same as Searcher and Sword. Would have been perfect for her old inking and coloring, but sadly, we did not get that.

Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

Final Quest= A return to the detailed inking but with Sonny's coloring and helluva confused plot! We got our first fugly elves with Fungusamungus Rootless Ones, Teir's long lost twin DreAhn, weird fire elves and all new High Ones having the same generic body. (And evidently no change of clothes either). What should have been Wendy's masterpiece was her failure.

Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

That's it for now. Later I might talk about Wendy's sketches and/or her Mask of the Red Death

Posts : 824 Join date : 2015-07-07

I liked the OQ the most. There were clearly physical differences between the elves, and Wendy still put effort into the lining and coloring. And I liked how cute they were looking...
After the chaos that was the Final Quest I didn't even bother keeping up with whatever she works on now...

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Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Dart_kimo_banner_by_janaweijers-db45ba7

Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

I think she's more or less retired and passed the torch to Sonny Strait. Of course Sonny doesn't the same attention span, but I do like his gnomeish trolls in Stargazer's Hunt. Still pissed at the way Cutter died tho.

Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 6:23 am

The first few issues of Final Quest reminded me of a gift I got as a child. Called a "diorama", it was a jungle landscape printed on a large foldout piece of card stock. Included were a stylus and images of tiny African warriors, printed in rub-on ink, on the reverse side of clear plastic sheets. I used the stylus to transfer the little figures to various places around the landscape.

Thanks for the childhood memory, Wendy!

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Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Ba_tro10

Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:21 pm

If you wonder why the early 80s' was the very best time for Wendy, in my eyes..

It was not grim, yet..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Pc778_10

..and it had HEART.

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Posts : 824 Join date : 2015-07-07

That is so cute! I love you

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Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Dart_kimo_banner_by_janaweijers-db45ba7

Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:29 pm

Sifra wrote:: That is so cute!

Back then, her style was far more than 'cute'.

It was totally..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art 10846410

..a dream!

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Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:30 pm

But if you want 'cute'..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Pc052_10

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Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:31 pm

And if you want a cute dream..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Newsta10

(see what I mean, elf-friends..?)

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Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:33 pm

Ooops, sorry, Prism..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Pc103410

..I must have been derailing this thread.

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Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:42 pm

Prism wrote:: ..
Same applied to the humans as any scene with a large amount showed all types from fat to skinny.
Detalis were at it's greatest as well. One could tell with the humans, from the austere simple Gotara worshippers to the heavy embroidery/decorations of Blue Mountain humans. Same applied to architecture and background scenery.
Coloring and inking were at her finest as well.

I guess what you are referring to..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Winnow11

(but the style had already become grim, at that time, next to OQ#6/20)

(and the lettering was not at its finest, with "outisde" instead of "outside") Wink

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Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

PCoquelin wrote:: Ooops, sorry, Prism..

..I must have been derailing this thread.

Not at all. The more people discuss her art the better! Personally some of her best art was in her portfolios, calendars and Day in the Life cartoons. When she transitioned to digital, the work suffered and Final Quest's failings was not just Sonny's questionable coloring but how convoluted and confusing the timeline was and not enough attention to the new elves. In Original Quest, we got to know all 4 the original tribes. Volume 1 was about the Sun Folk with some Wolfrider history, Volume 2 we got to know different tribes of humans plus more troll history, Volume 3 was about the Gliders with origin of Wolfriders and Volume 4 we saw the GoBack culture and they lived plus the origin of elves, trolls and Preservers. Siege at Blue Mountain was the decay/demise of the Gliders and the GoBacks degenerating with being banished and split in Kings of the Broken Wheel. More later.

Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

Then we get to Hidden Years; a mixed bag for me. I hate seeing that Rainsong, Woodlock and Wing are dead, but we get Little Patch, Mender and a few new characters. We also see that elves are every bit as capable of killing their own as humans and trolls, more degeneration of the GoBacks and Tyldak/Kahvi pairing which was one of the best in the whole series. Now I remember very little of New Blood or Hidden Years with new artists and that's deliberately! Never want to remember the image of Barry Blair's generic elves with ambiguous gender ever again!

Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 6:12 pm

Personally, I never could stand Barry Blair's style: bad proportions, almost no grace.

But I never tire..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Flower10

..of Wendy's early style.

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Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 6:15 pm

Wendy's style was the greatest in 1982..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art 10887110

..and, ten years later, it had less heart but it was more evolved, more refined, more modern..

..making it all the more a pity..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Pc103010

..that SHE did not draw the Jink series.

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Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 6:19 pm

" Now I remember very little of New Blood or Hidden Years with new artists and that's deliberately! Never want to remember the image of Barry Blair's generic elves with ambiguous gender ever again! "

Absolutely: yes, yes and YES! Blairs elves were interchangeable, they looked almost the same and more like little children. At the beginning he at least tried to draw Elfquest elves (which went badly wrong), but in the end it was his Elflord elves. If I want Elflord, I'll buy these comics, but I don't want them, I want to buy Elfquest comics. In this regard, I found RP to be insolent for what he had done afterwards; namely to put all the individual storylines in a single magazine, so that you were forced to buy Blair's ugly shit if you wanted other stories. Evil or Very Mad

I guess the Pinis came up with this concept because they couldn't sell enough copies of Blair comics and others (like future quest, still don`t know exactly, what happened there/will happen in the future).

Yup, PC, if Wendy would have drawn it, I would know the story of future Jink..

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Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Courts12

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Rayhan26

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Rayhan27

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Scree165

playing with Hero Forge

Subject: Re: Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Tue Dec 14, 2021 6:27 pm

This said, I DO love the combination of grace AND dignity she offered the Lord Voll character, later on.

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Pc775_10

And the symbolism..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Pc777_10

..of that throne!

To me, the Original Quest books..

Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Pc935_10

..are still books of total wonder,
even 36 years after I first discovered Elfquest!

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Posts : 1041 Join date : 2016-05-02

Those sketches of Jynk are pretty much a rehash of her earlier Vaia art. Vaia was a human wanderer with essentially the same build and hair and I remember some pre-Elfquest sketches featuring bug people who resembled proto-elves including a bug version of Savah! And then you have her Masque of the Red Death which was very good and Art Deco influenced tho many of the characters were definitely on the skinny side!

Posts : 499 Join date : 2015-03-26 Age : 33

Always loved that Jink outfit. It´s so casual yet detailed and pretty

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Analysis of Wendy's Elfquest art Ba_a_f10

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