The Kiss Beneath the Canopy is a romantic fantasy illustration featuring an orc and an elf caught in a quiet, intimate moment beneath the glow of the forest canopy.
I wanted the piece to feel almost as though we have stumbled across something private. The two characters are surrounded by deep woodland shadows, while warm green light filters through the leaves and pulls the focus towards them. Everything outside that little pocket of light begins to disappear. There is a story here, although I deliberately never decided exactly what it was.
One of my favourite things about fantasy romance is getting away from the idea that romance has to involve two perfectly polished, conventionally beautiful humans. Give me tusks. Give me pointed ears. Give me scars, unusual features, enormous height differences and characters who look like they actually belong in the strange fantasy worlds they inhabit.
There is something particularly lovely about putting characters who appear visually very different together and finding softness between them. I wanted the orc to still feel unmistakably powerful without losing tenderness, while the elf brings a softer contrast without becoming fragile. The closeness of their faces, the hands, the expressions and that tiny amount of space left between them do most of the storytelling.
The result sits somewhere between fantasy romance, monster romance and an illustrated moment from a story you have only been given one page of.