Dungeon Delve Challenge!

It's good to be back though I feel bittersweet coming back to work when I really enjoyed eating wonderfully, home-cooked Southern meals in Utah (I have some great reference images I'll post for you all to use too-awesome environment and mountainous shots). But back to the grindstone:

Jon Schindehette has written a description of a new challenge at Art Order. The last few challenges saw a drop in participation, but this challenge has the whole community in an uproar and people are drawing and posting sketches and critiques like MAD! And why is that?! Because the winner will have the opportunity to have their piece featured in Dragon Magazine. The whole she-bang-the piece will be purchased ($300) and published by Wizards of the Coast. Here's the description for the scene of the Dungeon Delve Challenge:

"An adventurer in a dark dungeon, thrusting lantern ahead into darkness. Character can be just about any race, class, and gender, as long as he
or she looks in bad shape--cut, bruised, dirty, hair all stringy and
damp from moisture dripping off walls and ceiling. This character is
lost in the dungeon and doesn¹t even know whether there is a way out,
much less where it would be.


I'm looking for a piece that captures the concept of being lost in dangerous territory - "behind enemy lines" type of vibe. I will not provide direction on the
dungeon. The adventurer could be in a long dark hallway, or a vast
dwarven hall under the mountains. The environment should be chosen to
support the concept of the illustration."

If you're interested in participating sign up at artorder.ning.com or if you just want to follow the progress, visit this link. You'll have plenty to read as the forum already has 70 PAGES worth of comments and images. Impressive! I'll be sure to post my finished piece in January (the challenge ends December 14th), so be sure to check back!

Oh and here are my initial sketches: