Wood Sprites

Gladys paced back and forth in the living room, wringing her hands nervously. The exterminator had been down in the basement for an awfully long time now. Suddenly she heard him tromping back up the stairs.

"W-well," she asked nervously. "Did you find anything?"

"Yeah, it's just like I figgered," said the exterminator, gesturing with his flashlight. "Lady, you got wood sprites."

"Oh dear," cried Gladys. "Is that bad?

"It ain't good," said the exterminator. "We're gonna need to tent this whole place pronto. It shouldn't run more than two thousand. Three thousand, tops."

"Oh my," croaked Gladys. "I-I'll have to speak with my husband about this first, you understand."

"Sure, sure, lady," he said. "But I wouldn't advise waitin' too awful long. They're settin' up shop down there like crazy. They got a pretty big nest behind the water heater and it looks like they're settin' up satellite colonies next to the furnace and over by the sump pump. The whole basement is glowin' blue. If you don't do somethin' soon this whole place is gonna fall down around your ears.

The Wood Sprite was drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

Here's the original notebook doodle of the sprite. I gave him a running pose for the final drawing to give it some more action and visual interest.

Originally his markings were going to be yellowish, kind of like a firefly. At the very last minute I decided I didn't like it and started playing with the color sliders in Photoshop. I settled on a blue glow instead for the final image. I thought the blue said "glowing electrical  light" better than pale yellow did.