I’m a graphic designer and a fantasy digital painter, class 1986, living in Verona, Italy.
I started my artistic journey with traditional media (watercolors, acrylics) but since 2010 I started experimenting with digital painting (Photoshop painting on Wacom tablet).
My work is usually the result of mixed media tecnique, with pencil/ballpen sketch and digital coloring and rendering. Since 2020 I take commissions for fantasy art.
A wasted year, a journey through the fog. I had the time, but I didn’t have the mind. Emotions in turmoil, stress, and problems, and here we are, very few paintings to remember this 2025. But oh, for certain I’m not likely to forget them.
What is “art VS artist”? This excerpt from Forbes says:
“[…] In addition to helping promote artwork, #ArtvsArtist humanizes creators reminding us that artists are people too. The plethora of creative work available online can cause us to forget the people producing it. “People seem to think art accounts are just run by robots, not actual people trying to hone their craft,” concept artist, Yoshi Yoshitani says. Dehumanizing creators can encourage theft of art […]”
“Spring,” my digital painting of… flowers, grass, ivy and a dragon long gone.
My contribution to the “Dragonary” challenge that artist Matthew Stawicki launched a few years ago, and which encourages me to create at least one dragon every January.
🌼 Spring always brings something. Maybe it’s not what’s past and gone… but something.
Work in progress
Started as a 20×30 cm pencil drawing, it became a ballpen drawing I worked on and off during 2025, and that I brought to digital media during january 2026. Redraw and color with a drawing app for SNote9, then phothoshop & Cintiq.
Details
Created on: 29 January 2026 Copyright 2026 Elena Greenedera Zambelli, all rights reserved #noai
A painting, a final memento of a brief but meaningful journey together. During 2025, I struggled to listen to my art—I listened and heard only silence, or the call of distractions. I accepted very few requests, and only from people I cared deeply about. One of these was Anomalous Thracian, with whom I worked for three years. So many paintings, so many ideas, so many stories. It can all end so quickly. I didn’t know it, yet I was desperate to finish this painting without wasting too much time. And so this painting was finished, and just in time, you might say. Thracian loved it; he framed it and showed me a picture just before the end. I will hardly ever forget this painting. Go, Ardrael, sea elf, heroine and warrior, aboard your ship. We’ll see each other on the other side of the dawn.
Fanart is a little star of creativity. I love looking at it, I love making it, even when it’s simple and just a small idea rather than a full-blown painting. Here’s a character from the video game Horizon Forbidden West.
Kotallo of the Tenakht, a warrior who overcame the loss of his arm and battled chronic pain. Here, in armor inspired by both the Tenakht and God of War, of which there are Easter eggs in the video game. And from Pikapeppa’s fanfictions on Ao3. A sketch started in December 2024 and was reworked in August 2025.
And… video dump
I’ve plucked up the courage to upload over 30 videos to YouTube about the creation of various paintings from 2022 to today—a lot of material I had on my computer that had yet to see the light of day. You’ll find them on my YouTube in the “Long Art Process Videos” playlist and then linked to the individual paintings’ pages. And… there will be more.
Sometimes I try to sort through the huge mass of “work in progress” materials I have, and I find paintings I’ve never published on my website. This is the case with a portrait of two cats, created on commission. As a bonus, there was also video production. Here it is, painted in 2022, for P. from her friends.
3 illustrations commissioned by the Dragonlance Nexus for the project “The Dark Patrol”, a DnD 5 game manual which includes an adventure, and a novelette by Dragonlance fantasy author Richard Knaak.
📕 The manual “Huma: Before the Lance – The Dark Patrol” by the Dragonlance Nexus and Richard Knaak contains 3 original paintings by me, and various decorative elements.
7 illustrations painted for fantasy author Richard Knaak for the new project: Birth of the Dragonrealm. It’s the 40th anniversary of the creation of “Firedrake” – the very first tale of the Dragonrealm series. Who? Cabe Bedlam. The Lady of the Amber. Duke Toma. Darkhorse. The Gryphon. Azran Bedlam. Shade.
Blog post 25/07/2025 – How long does it take to finish a painting? In this case, it took 3 years. I created the sketch, lineart and draft color in 2022, during that month of January spent creating one dragon after another for the “Dragonary” challenge established by Matt Stawicki. Then the painting remained there, and I always promised myself to fix it, to finish it somehow. And here we are. It’s June 2025 and I have finally completely taken over both the background and the dragon, trying not to lose the personality of this fascinating creature that drifts among the clouds of dust suspended between worlds.
Digital painting (mixed media, pencil and digital), smartphone drawing, photoshop & wacom digital painting, january 2022, PSD + Rework on Photoshop and Wacom tablet in June 2025.
Can dragons travel in space? Why not? This is one of the characteristics of dragons in the Spelljammer universe, a Dungeons & Dragons setting recently (2022) re-released for the fifth edition.
Work in progress and details:
Prints
Prints on RedBubble
Use of this artwork
You can share this artwork on a social media only if you credit me properly in the caption, “Artwork by Elena “Greenedera” Zambelli http://www.greenedera.com”. Thank you for the understanding. For any other use of this artwork, contact me first. And don’t feed it to the Ais.
If you’re interested in digital downloads without watermark for personal use, licensing the artwork for a new project, or you’d like a custom print, please contact me.
Created on: 20/01/2022 + rework 21/06/2025 Copyright 2022 Elena Greenedera Zambelli, all rights reserved #noai
“Raistlin – White Roses” is my new digital painting. In occasion of Raistlin’s birthday, on 17 June 2025, I drew “something” about him as I did in the past years. A personal challenge, a reminder I should draw something for myself. Painted with Photoshop on Wacom Tablet and S Note 9. Raistlin Majere is a character from the “Dragonlance” books by M. Weis and T. Hickman; this is a work of fanart.
This time, for Raistlin’s birthday I asked myself: what would he love to do on his birthday? Well, why not gardening? He’s an expert herbalist, and he needs rose petals for his spells. The robes are black, the black moon is shining its black light. In the background we see the thorns of the Shoikan grove.
Here. Your Day of Life, Raistlin. Alone in the moonlight, focused on some not so happy thoughts, not smiling. Happiness is something you dont feel is part of your life – yet there are brief moments of serenity, buried among the bitter thoughts. White roses, as innocence lost under the crushing weight of life in an unjust world.
Work in progress
Trivia & Faq
Is this scene from the books?
No, it isn’t. It’s fanart, like many, many others. But remember, Raistlin is – other than a mage – a herbalist and healer since he was young. He would have a small garden even in Solace (I think Soulforge covers that). So, every gardener has to trim and tend flowes and herbs. So this scene, even if not specifically described in books (it’s just fanart) is about a black robed Raistlin, master of past and present, pruning roses – or collecting petals for his spells.
Are the white roses about Crysania?
Various users thought the white roses represented Crysania, and I love that interpretation as well; it’s a nice symbolism too, very poetic. Like the Good taking root in his heart, as Crysania hoped. Or the opposite, of course. Like, when Raistlin betrays Crysania in the Abyss, he somehow destroys every nice memory or feeling for her – that in his soul that could be represented as him, cutting away white roses from a secret garden. I find it beautiful that where I drew white roses for the lost innocence of young Raistlin, others saw much more facets of this complex character.
Prints
Prints on RedBubble
Use of this artwork
For any commercial use or repost of this artwork, contact me first. If you’re interested in digital downloads without watermark for personal use, licensing an artwork for a new project, or you’d like a custom print, please contact me.
Use by Fans for publication in themed Fandom groups or Fandom lore videos. I am okay with “fans” publication, as long as you use the watermarked version of the painting (we entered the era of AI and NFT theft and I already got burned, sorry), and you credit me in the post description with: “Artwork: “(Title)” Artist: “Elena Zambelli @Greenedera”. I kindly ask you to Tag me or send me a notification and insert a link to my website.
Copyright 2025 Elena Zambelli, All Rights Reserved. Created on: 17/06/2025
My painting, “Dragon of a Dying Sun”. The result of strange days, months of anger seeking an outlet. Months of heavy art block. And the return to the habit of starting the year by drawing dragons, like the “Dragonary” challenge launched years ago by Matt Stawicki.
Work in progress
A pencil sketch on A4 paper, turned detailed ballpen drawing, then colored in digital with Photoshop and Media Tablet.
Created on: 22/01/2025 Copyright 2025 Elena Greenedera Zambelli, all rights reserved #noai
2024 has been a seemingly quiet year, but sprinkled with art nonetheless. I have had little energy to dedicate to posting on web and social media, so there are several finished works just sitting on my desk. There are paintings I have created for myself, others commissioned and published, some awaiting release. There are countless sketches that dot my notebooks, waiting to be developed. I am still in energy savingmode, and my good intentions for this year are to get back into gear with the creation of new paintings. And their publication 😅
Thank you, reader, for sharing this art journey with me.
