Sorry for the crappy scan, as I had to make do with a copying machine on-site while I finished this piece a day before the charity auction at Eurofurence 24, for which this piece was intended. Pretty nerve-wrecking it was, I'll admit. Ideally, I would've let a professional copy service make a scan and adjust the contrasts, but there simply was no time left, and I desperately wanted to get this piece in before the deadline. Speaking of deadlines, I finally managed to keep one, in regards to drawings, that is. And boy did it feel good to make it. I'll endeavour to keep more deadlines in the near future. Prolonged times of seclusion does work after all... And it made EUR 150 at the auction too!

I think it was back in February I made the decision to make a charity auction piece, after I heard a friend and staffer at EF talk about the charity auction. As a relative unknown in the furry community, there were worse ways to introduce yourself to a furry public concentrated in such a small area, than this - well, there was the Artist's Lounge too though... Since this year's theme was "aviation", I decided the piece should be air travel inspired as well.

As is usually the case with me, I started out very productively, making good headway into the project, to finally hit a mental obstacle around the midway point. After feeling the deadline closing in weeks before EF I scrambled to get work done, with the thought of just throwing the towel in the ring, lingering aroung during the process of finishing this piece. But what a difference a week of taking long timeblocks of spending time on the drawing makes. Didn't think I had it in me, honestly. I've had a lot of fun putting in a few cryptic Easter Eggs here and there, although not all came out as prominently as I've wanted to. Hope you can find them. One user already spotted one in the WIP drawing of this.

So here we have Orvar the squirrel, flying around delivering packages to residents on the flying islands of the planet Maharba with his pet companion, Vesna. Quite knowledgable of the geography, he nevertheless has never heard of the address of this next parcel. Assuming the address to be in the vicinity of all his other destinations, he flies around in search for 15 minutes. It's not near the watery little island of Ahras, nowhere close to the mountainous Tol island and sadly, not in the windy neighborhood of Reath.

Close to giving up however, he spots Melia, a pegasus just leaving from her visit on Tol, where she tended the gardens of one of her patrons. He decided to do what he should've done earlier and shouted: "Excuse me, miss! Do you know where I can find the flying island of Ananca?" Turning around, she exclaimed that Ananca was a wide way away and pointed westward, way over the mountains, towards the deserts. "It's roughly two hours flying, I'd reckon!" Melia shouted back at the circling plane. "Ah, well, thank you! Have a nice day!" Just his luck, having to fly hours for just one package. Someone back at the office is going to hear of this. Orvar and Vesna set off toward the deserts, knowing he'll have to ask for further directions there.

Who knows, if the happy bidder can provide me with a better scan, I'll happily update this submission. Maybe I should just invest in an A3-scanner...