Dreamy

I've been having vivid dreams lately due largely to my sleeping habits.  Mostly they just irritate me, but yesterday morning my dream featured one of the characters from my story project.  My characters don't usually pop up in my dreams, but I find it a treat when they do because they're that much more entertaining and sometimes I can get ideas from them.  I took a shot at drawing from my dream, but I can't say I'm pleased with the result. DX

This is the first attempt I made.

This particular character is really hard for me to draw, and he has been for as long as I can remember.  His is the oldest character design I still use.  I used a reference to help me draw his face.  He's the serious type, hence the "serious business" expression, but in my dream he actually smiled...and he had the weirdest sword.

I mean, what is that thing?

I don't recall if it looked exactly like this in the dream, but I remember distinctly that it had a zig-zagging, double helix shape and it was encrusted with jewels that looked like barnacles.  The sword was also pink, but that might have been the lighting. And it was sparkly. GAUDIEST THING EVER.  At the beginning of the dream, his village was attacked by ruffians that sacked the place by night, setting fire to buildings and driving panicked horses running into the streets.  I perceived that it was the next morning when he arrived on the scene, and for a few seconds my mind was narrating his actions like I was writing him.  He calmed one of the horses and surveyed the damage solemnly.  Abruptly I was no longer the narrator but the spectator, and three little imp things appeared on the scene. They reminded me of Midna. He turned to them, his pose very similar to the one I drew, and that's when I saw that atrocious sword of his for the first time.  In the dream he handed each of the imps a jewel from his blade, and when they put them in their mouths they swept him away through an erratic chain of portals that showed flashes of places that looked suspiciously like they had come from the episodes of Aladdin that I watched the night before.

Then I woke up.  I was struck with the urge to draw that ridiculous blade right away, but then I got caught up in the day and the urge ebbed.  I might have moved on with my life if I hadn't told Evie about this silly dream and she goaded me into drawing.  The first one I like ok now that I'm looking at it, but at the time I got disgruntled and wanted to try again, falling back to a more anime-ish style, and thus came the second piece.  I tore through it just for the sake of finishing it, so it's really sloppy and no part of it looks right to me. >.< I almost banished these to the rejection-drawer without even signing them so I wouldn't have to admit I'd made them, but I figured I might as well have something to show for the hour and a half or so I spent on these.  Besides, at least now I can look back at this and laugh over that sword.  Dreams are such funny things!