Get inspired with this week’s Fantasy Art Friday, where fun fantasy artwork is combined with a writing prompt to get your creative juices flowing.
It is All Hallows Eve. Under the rising moon, shadows stir, taking physical form as they can only do on this one night every year. The pumpkin patch is the perfect place to gather. The perfect pumpkins have already been selected and carted away. What remains are the scarred, malformed, broken, and rotting pumpkins; perfect vessels for an unholy ceremony–the selection of the coming year’s shadow king. Surrounding him are those pledged to follow his reign as he spreads fear and chaos among the humans. They circle him, taking part in an ancient dance, disguised as Jack-o-Lanterns, scarecrows, cornstalks, and dead trees. The Shadow King rules them all.
But the farmer sees the glow, and hears the commotion coming from his field. He slowly approaches to stare down the king. He has something in his hand–what is it? Has he come to stop the shadows, or will he fall prey to them? Perhaps he has been part of the shadow world all along, and he is only his true self on Halloween night. What happens in this spooky tale is entirely up to you…
Happy Halloween!
(Title and Artist unknown)
Want to see more Fantasy Art posts? Find them here.
Allison D. Reid 
A potent image indeed. It’s interesting. When I look at this image I wonder if the great shadow king is summoning the others, or if their dance causes him to rise up and take form. Is he truly a being with a will and desire, or is he merely a coalescing of their ideas and will, a dream that is briefly brought to life as a centerpiece of their dance, their one night to embrace and welcome darkness, rather than drive it away.
I can’t help but think of how often Halloween is a time for people to embrace their inner ghoul, and briefly play the villain.
There is a kind of harvest or “gathering” to it, but I feel like in their own way everything around that circle is watching with a kind of joy. “For tonight, we are allowed to cross this line. Let it all out, so that you will be free of it for another year.”
To me the figure has a “looking on with approval” stance to it, the same way a parent or guardian might look on as children play a game that he once enjoyed when he was young. I definitely get a strong sense of approval in this image, a welcoming of the dark, recognizing that it is not evil, merely another part of who we are, an old tradition that the modern world does not understand, so they do it secretly, in the forest, far from the eyes of city folk. Honoring a dark spirit who renews their own pledge, their own love of the people, and promises to continue watching and protecting, unseen, for another year.
LikeLiked by 1 person