Lieutenant Hamelin & his singing mouse

The Pied Piper of Hamelin was the first story I illustrated while I was in art school. The old version of the piper was a rather naive watercolour and will never appear on this blog, this is the new one I recently finished.
It's a contribution to a wonderful group project called Colonel Windpipe's Musical Brigade, run by the very nice and talented Lesley Barnes and Uberkraaft. (click on the names to visit their websites!) You can see some of the submissions to this project on the blog here and more recruits waiting for friday's inspection in the Flickr Group Pool here

It was a very fun illustration to work on and an extra push to step outside my comfort zone and create a "bad guy" for once. There are many textures and little details in this illustration, including a brand new set of brushes I made using some of my grandma's doilies (the veins around his eyes). Click on the full image to see a larger version.