Guen The Panther

My incredible custom order Eastern Light Studio 1/3 poseable black panther (by the highly skilled crafts artist my friend Maryam Daneshvar) is here!!! Guen is meant as a companion animal for my BJDs. She’s a majestic and fierce fantasy feline beast with muscle definition and an extra long tail. Her eyes gleam amazingly in photos, like two of the brightest stars! She also features a completely newly developed moving jaw line. She can can open and close her maw! Her teeth and tongue are insanely realistically sculpted and her posing ability is marvelous regardless of her big size and mass. Maryam sculpts and constructs her animals from beginning to end and she was finished with my Guen well ahead of time too, in less than 1,5 months in the middle of the busiest season among other orders and work of hers. Truly remarkable that and the finish and quality are immaculate!! So please, meet Guen:

My Guen’s character is based on the books of R.A. Salvatore’s magical panther Guenhwyvar, from the Forgotten Realms Drizzt saga. Drizzt the drow elf (played by my Soom Dream Ripper Heliot) owns a highly detailed magical onyx panther figurine, which holds the essence of the magical panther and Drizzt can summon her from the Astral Plain to the material realm with it. Guen is Drizzt’s loyal friend and comrade in battles. She’s a fierce creature, but also a wonderful companion for Drizzt and his friends. As a huge fan of the book series, I wanted to have some of the characters played by my dolls, but I could not do it without Guen, who is an essential member of The Companions of The Hall.

Maryam had never read the books. I described to her how I wanted Guen to look like, shared some illustrations and mentioned she’s from the book series. I did not however mention about the onyx figurine at any point, so you can just imagine my surprise when I found a fantastic miniature panther sculpture included in my parcel!!! Maryam had educated herself on the saga further yet and found out about it. She had felt it needed to be part of the package of Guen then, made it for me and included it as a gift in my parcel. I’m just blown away and so humbled by her gesture. I can't but admire her dedication to her craft! I’m in awe of the supreme detail in this super small sculpture that fits perfectly in the hands of my Drizzt/Soom Heliot. I’m absolutely over the moon because of all this!

I already attempted a first photo shoot with Guen, Drizzt and my Impldoll Marcus was playing the barbarian Wulgar. I had a new mountainous backdrop for to create a setting that would remind me of Icewind Dale of the books. My Heliot's eyes are not quite right and I'm still looking for the perfect pair of lavander orbs for him. Wulgar/Marcus is making use of the weapons my dad and I made over the autumn now.

I may have been a bit too ambitious. With my Heliot’s poor posing abilities it got a bit difficult and I’m not used to photographing black subjects as well. I needed to do quite a bit of fumbling with the camera settings to get some decent shots. I'll have to educate myself on how to shoot black targets, but then it’ll be fun and I could not have a more exciting model to work with!! It’s hard to get an even colour on Guen and yet showcase her wonderful form while making her stand out from the scenery. She will be much more challenging to photograph than my Noos the wolf that way, but I’m excited to start learning and researching tips and tricks for that!

I have commissioned 4 animals from my amazing friend Maryam. Noos The wolf was the first and Guen the fantasy panther is the second of them. Next to come is an Irish Setter (yet to be named) and last but not least, a ragdoll cat called Kelsier (named again after a literary hero of mine!).

Thanks once more to my beautiful friend Maryam for this stunning work of art Guen The Panther and the precious gift onyx figurine!

You can Maryam's Etsy store Eastern Light Studio here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/EasternLightStudio . I've also added it to my permanent link list on my main blog page.