No, this is not the last movie of the Xmen franchise, no, this is part of the commissions I have been doing for @smanuels and this time he asked me to make black flames, so keep reading to know what it is about and how I did it.

Obviously the character of today is a Phoenix, but not a common one, this one has the particularity of possessing ebony colored flames, being millenary and majestic creatures that fly over the skies of Elimea and Zurnasus. They are rarely seen at low altitude, except when a solar eclipse occurs. Legend has it that they originated thousands of years ago in the eruption of the black fire caldera, one of the mega volcanoes in the territory of Zurnasus.

Here is the description that was given to me for the bird:

-Headdress: Its head is set on fire with only a thin grey beak and purple eyes.

-Torso: Its body is covered in black flames as well, but the center of the back is free of it and a silvery plumage can be seen, which has a faint glow of dark red.

-Legs clothing: It has legs, but they are not seen in full flight.

-Arm and hand clothing: The outstretched wings are completely wrapped in ebony-coloured flames.

Average height and weight: 2m long, 3m wide with wings outstretched.

Tools:

• Wacom Intuos 4
• Medibang Paint

For the sketch I have sought as a reference the image of a falcon in full flight, as this is the appearance that the client wanted for the bird.

Fill in the colouring of the creature using a firm looking watercolour brush, nothing of low opacity for now. I based myself clearly on the description of the character, its black wings, its silver back, but still nothing of purple eyes, without that tone in the eyes and its open beak it looks totally like a crow.

Since I had already established the posture of the phoenix and I did not plan to have it adjusted, I proceeded to make the background, using reddish and orange tones, mixing them with the watercolor brush in low opacity, but in order not to give too much detail and to emphasize the bird, I used the Gaussian blur to blur everything, thus obtaining small silhouettes of other phoenixes flying in the horizon.

This illustration was really easy for me, so I was able to spend more time detailing the flames and their direction with the movement of the bird, so I alternated using the watercolor brush and the airbrush, both in very low opacities.

Did something disappear in the sky? In the description of the scenario it said "...sky with clouds reddened by the effect of a solar eclipse. In the distance you can see an island on the surface" and I thought it was a floating island like the one I made in the illustration of the flying whale days ago, but the client made it clear to me that this island was not that kind, so I had to remove it from the sky, shooting it down with a missile, ok no, I just had to hide the layer where I had drawn it (praise the layers). As a final curious fact, the eclipse lighting is very similar to the images of the black hole photographed last year.

I'll leave you a little gif with the whole process in it, so you can better appreciate the step by step.