The Enchanted Forest - Inked Stage

At present I am hosting a swap with the theme "The Enchanted Forest". Now, it has become traditional for me to send out additional cards to players, particularly those that send a bonus hostess card for me. This means generally for swaps I host I shall create around a dozen cards. Not usually too much problem, but this theme had foxed me a bit - especially coupled with the fact that I am rather enjoying working on larger pieces this year.

And thus I decided to create 9 cards as parts of a single image:

The black lines are not currently a part of the image, but do show approximately where the outlines of each card will be. From looking at this, I think the bat one needs something to balance it on the bottom right, and thus will remedy that.

Now, for the story behind this piece...
Well, there isn't one, not really - but ages and ages ago I particupated in a swap entitled "the Deep Dark Woods" which was an awesome theme but rather spoiled for me by the fact that the Host never sent out returns and therefore must have kept all the cards. Anyhow, for that I created a series of images - a witch's house, a giant spider, a strange gliding creature and some giant sundews. Some of these images were inspired by those cards, although the gliding creature has been replaced with a pair of grimalkyn. Which is interesting, because I thought my Grim was unique in his world. Oh well! Not sure what the deerlike creature is. Or the lizard-gryphon.

If anyone wishes to make up a story about a little anthro-mouse that lives in a gingerbread house and has befriened all the wild animals (including giant katydids), please let me know.

I shall post more up here as I begin colouring it.