Black Djinn part II

I’ve finished colouring the Djinn I started last week.
Contrarily to what I do most of the times (that is, open Photoshop and start drawing), this time round I did some planning first: I thought of the composition, which areas to focus on, how to make the various elements of the drawing support the area of main interest and so on.
I’m quite happy with the result, if I won’t hate it in a week it means it’s a keeper!

The Djinn

A Djinn is one of the most prominent figures in Arab folklore and, currently, number two on my list of things to do, once again inspired by the people from Reddit.

I suspect the iconic Djinn exported into the Western tradition is but a washed out version of the more complex one of the original mythology.
Where I assumed Djinn were some kind of humanoid guys with vaguely demonic faces, by what I get from Wikipedia there’s a lot more than that.

Together, jinn, humans and angels make up the three sentient creations of Allah. Religious sources say barely anything about them; however, the Qur’an mentions that Jinn are made of smokeless flame or “scorching fire”.[1] Like human beings, the Jinn can also be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent.

According to traditions, the jinn stood behind the learned humans in Solomon’s court, who in turn, sat behind the prophets. The jinn remained in the service of Solomon, who had placed them in bondage, and had ordered them to perform a number of tasks.
“…and there were jinn that worked in front of him, by the leave of his Lord,” (Qur’an 32:12)
“And before Solomon were marshalled his hosts,- of jinn and men and birds, and they were all kept in order and ranks.” (Quran 27:17)

A few traditions (hadith), divide jinn into three classes: those who have wings and fly in the air, those who resemble snakes and dogs, and those who travel about ceaselessly.[14] Other reports claim that ‘Abd Allāh ibn Mas‘ūd (d. 652), who was accompanying Muhammad when the jinn came to hear his recitation of the Qur’an, described them as creatures of different forms; some resembling vultures and snakes, others tall men in white garb.[15] They may even appear as dragons, onagers, or a number of other animals.[16] In addition to their animal forms, the jinn occasionally assume human form to mislead and destroy their human victims.[17] Certain hadiths have also claimed that the jinn may subsist on bones, which will grow flesh again as soon as they touch them, and that their animals may live on dung, which will revert to grain or grass for the use of the jinn flocks.

Reading this I was quite tempted to come up with something crazy. Unfortunately I’m afraid that a guy with a dog’s head and perhaps wings would be, albeit undoubtedly interesting, scarcely recognizable as a Djinn, whose iconic representation in our culture is that of a muscular guy with bracelets and a vaguely middle-eastern look.
I’ll stick to this for the time being, but I’ll certainly explore the Djinn myth some other time.

In the meantime, here’s some sketches.