Griffins of Bedrograd

A gift for ~alphyna, congratulating her birthday. It's a creature from her novel «Plague in Bedrograd», which you should totally check out if you speak Russian. Or even if you don't! It has lots of pretty pictures!

Originally I inteded to use this piece as an opportunity to revisit the gradient map technique I was using a few years back, to match Alphyna's colorful style, but when I finished the grayscale picture and tried to apply some color to it, the whole thing was just falling apart. So I decided to go for a more artsy way to finish it. The final picture ended up being both cooler and less time-consuming as a result, me thinks.