Monthly Art Challenge – April 2025 “Fairy Tales and Bedtime Stories”

[sooz]

Hello Krita Artists

The Monthly Art Challenge for March 2025 is complete. Congratulations to everyone who participated by submitting wonderful art, and also to our members who voted for the entries.

@Elixiah won the most votes and decided to give someone else the honor of creating the next challenge. She and the 1st runner up, @Mythmaker, elected @Katamaheen to create the April challenge.

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Fairy Tales and Bedtime Stories

Illustrate a scene from a tale of your choice. You can illustrate the story in its original style, or you can give it a new look with your very own special touch, but keep it recognizable.

Additional challenge: Create a book cover for the fairy tale of your choice, including the title and author’s name. If you choose to use the text tool, there are many websites that allow you to download royalty-free fonts, like FontSpace: Free Fonts for Commercial Use - Royalty Free | FontSpace

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Please post only artworks and discussion related to submitted artwork in this thread. There is a WIP thread for each monthly art challenge in which you can ask questions and post your works in progress (WIPs).

Monthly Art Challenge WIPs and Discussion Thread – April 2025

Rules

• The composition should be your own and not an exact copy from someone or somewhere else. If you are using a reference photo taken by anyone other than yourself, please ensure the license allows for its use and include a credit to the photographer with your submission.
• Artwork should be done in Krita. Submissions must be done from scratch in Krita, no paint-over or tracing allowed. Photobashing is allowed only when explicitly specified in the topic.
• The topic changes every month. Your submission should be somehow related to the topic. If possible, please add a few lines explaining your idea and image.
• No AI-generated images are allowed, not even partial use of AI and paint over. It is unfair for those who are drawing from scratch.
• You can post a maximum of 3 entries and also edit the entries until the deadline. All your entries will be clubbed during the vote and you only get one vote. Reply with your entries to this post in this thread. All entries must appear in a single post. Please do not post your submissions in any other category on Krita-Artists until voting has closed and the winner is declared.
• In order to have the image featured, the entries need to be safe for work so please avoid any NSFW or controversial content. The moderators can use their discretion to disqualify the image from the contest with prior notice. Of course, the artist will be given the chance to submit an alternate image or change it.
• Submissions will be accepted until 2025-04-26T18:00:00Z, at which time the topic will automatically close. You can check how much time is left at the bottom of the thread.

We will hold a poll at the end of the challenge period. The artwork with the most votes will be the winner.

Prize

• The winner will be featured on this website in the featured artwork row.
• The winner will have the privilege to set the next topic of their liking. If the winner is not available or reachable, then the 1st runner up will be asked to provide the topic and challenge
• The winner will also be awarded the Monthly Art Contest Winner badge.

Please spread the word about this art challenge by posting your artwork on various social media websites with the hashtag – #KritaChallenge. If possible, include a link to the forum post.

I hope we will enjoy this exercise so let us begin.

P.S. Note we can change the rules based on the feedback on this contest and modify the format. Any suggestions are welcome. To submit feedback, please create a new topic in the Site Feedback category.

[steve.improvthis]

My submissions for this month, there’s more info in the discussion thread.

Fairytale Challenge: Charles Perralut’s Puss In Boots cover

Bedtime Story scene: The Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride

Bedtime Story: Opening page of Snow White, Evil Queen’s Castle

[edgarej]

She’s not so little anymore…

P.S. I spared you guys robots this month

[steve.improvthis]

@edgarej : Great use of light and shadow!
By the way… who is not so little anymore?

[edgarej]

Red Riding Hood… she’s not little anymore.

Little red riding hood is known worldwide, right? That’s not just a western fairy tale, is it?

[Elixiah]

I think it originated in France long ago.

[steve.improvthis]

I thought it was Red, but … it could have been the wolf who was all grown up from some other story I was not familiar with.

[Hawklin]

France seems to be the earliest printed version, which would be Perrault’s version.

However, this article alludes to maybe possible earlier versions. Interesting the things I learn when doing challenges like this. I didn’t realize how much I missed this…LOL

Very well done, BTW. Just enough light to see the short sword in one hand, and the other hand is holding…maybe a pistol? Not so little at all, I’d say.

Wikipedia: Little Red Riding Hood

[edgarej]

Thanks…

Yes, she’s holding a pistol. I should have made the silhouette a little better around that area.

[Konstrukto]

I went for this classic german fairytale: The Enchanted Princess - Wikipedia

[Elixiah]

Since Little Red Riding Hood is already in this lineup, I’m going to enter Jack and the Beanstalk. I don’t know if I can get the optional book cover done in time.

Here is my optional book cover…

[Corentin]

Hey there!
Here are my entries. I llustrated a French tale by George Sand called “Le Marteau Rouge” (The Red Hammer ), that is about… a rock! LOL The existence of a piece of carnelian rock from the moment it fell from the mountain in the mythological times, and how it was found, broken in smaller pieces, used and forgotten by people several times throughout the ages, until only a small part of it now remains encased in a ring. The title came from the fact that the most glorious part of the “life” of that rock was being used as the head of a war hammer by the chief of a prehistoric tribe (who painted his entire body with a blue war paint), so I naturally chose to paint that moment.
I made 2 entries because I wanted 1 with the original French title and 1 with the translation to adapt to the language of this contest.
About the font used: Jungle Fever (100% free on dafont.com) for the title and Franklin Gothic Medium (native in Windows) for the author’s name. I also applied the layer style “Satin”.

[EGStyles]

The Last Two Unicorns of Legend

[OmaKikismakes]

Oh, I like this soooo much. The perspective, the look in his eyes, the light of the lantern. I´m flashed. Bravo.

[edgarej]

if you have time, enter “little red.” I would love to see her!

[Elixiah]

@edgarej Well, thought I should only enter one. I haven’t done anything to it since the WIP post.

[edgarej]

ok… it would still be cool to see it in the future

[b0soderlund]

I went with the grim 1859 H.C. Andersen fairytale ‘The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf’

This story lodged itself in my mind when I was a kid because of its horrific and exceedingly grand - almost cosmic - imagery. It’s a pretty wild one!

I started at the wrong end of the challenge and wasn’t able to finish the actual scene on time, so this is just my contribution for the additional challenge I’ll get it right next month

[sooz]

Looks great, @b0soderlund