How Inspiration works... sometimes...

Yesterday, my Pandora station played Mumford & Sons "Little Lion Man."  I was curious about something and went to look up the lyrics, which lead to my discovery of this video... which I could not stop watching.  Of course, I like how it sounds, but I also thought that the video was really beautiful... very lovely, moody lighting, tons of emotion (look at their expressions)... just a perfect combination of elements.  Take a look (language warning, for those at work or in the presence of young, impressionable vocabularies):

Before long I had a paintbrush in my hand and that video turned into this:

For additional photos, you may check out the listing in my Etsy shop.  I may end up doing another version of this because I'd like to work some of that fantastic blue-green shading into it, but this is what I have for now.  It usually takes me a couple versions to get a painting right, anyway, so no big deal there.

The moral of this story is that sometimes inspiration comes pre-packaged and ready to go.  It almost feels like cheating.

And then there are the other times...