I rarely draw art of my own comic characters outside of the comic itself--not because I don't love them, but largely because I already do the comic, where they get plenty of face time, and and I like to spend my non-comic art time exploring other realms.But dangit, I do love the trolls.The trolls showed up in "Digger" sort of backwards--I had been drawing them anyway, entirely seperately, and then I found myself with a troll-shaped hole in the story, so I plugged 'em into it. (This sort of thing happens a lot.) Trolls are large, good-natured, powerful, and probably capable of great ferocity, but they usually wind up cavorting in the tulips instead.The grumpy looking squash is, in fact, aalthough he's mellowed a bit for this shot.This painting is a return to probably my very first mixed media technique--I did a detailed pencil sketch, scanned it, "inked" it, and colored over the top. I worked on this thinking "Wow, that takes me back!" Not a style I'd want to work in exclusively, but it's fun to revisit. The original 11 x 14 pencil piece will be for sale in the art show at Anthrocon. I had originally intended this for a possible Digger cover, but the format didn't work out, so I'm doing another, similiar piece in the correct format which'll hopefully fit better.Most of the archives of Digger are currently free during the voting for the Eisner awards, but generally they're subscription only. The current update is always free, however. Print volume 1 is out, and 2 is on the way! If you'd like to read the currently available archives, mosey on over to [link] and check it out.Prints of this image are available for $10 plus shipping. Send a note or visit [link] for details!