Yulia of the Resurrection by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)

I had an urge to draw foxes. What was originally supposed to be some warm-up sketches before I resumed my latest page for DYOS became an unexpectedly detailed portrait of Yulia Nastunyeshyn, a character created for my very own IOT: The Aftermath. The game plays host to two mutant races: the iconic "furries" of the Marians, descendents of Neo-Incan gene splicing experiments, and the Kaetif, a term misappropriated from @Jakkal's Black Tapestries, in this case referring to uplifted animals that were an unintended consequence of the Third World War in IOT4. Yulia belongs to the latter. Whereas the Neo-Incans were inferred to be originally human until they tinkered too much with their own DNA (albeit not so much that they can't interbreed; see Immanuel de Zorrito), the Kaetif remain genetically related to their original species and are thus far understood to be incompatible with either humans or the Marians. They are described as more 'feral' in appearance than the Marians, and are uniquely adapted to survive in Yellow Zone regions where radiological contamination poses a danger to other races. (Not that it's their residence of choice, mind.)

Much like their eponymous inspiration, Kaetif are commonly treated as second-class citizens in many countries, due to historic animosity against the Marians, perceived similarity to the monstrous "Abhorrents" of the Red Zones, and/or general xenophobia. One of the most notable exceptions is the New Hetmanate, which pretty much forced integrative policy from day one. It was also the first to incorporate them into the armed forces after realizing their radiation resistance would be especially useful to the defence of a heavily-irradiated Ukraine. Yulia was conceived as part of a contingency plan in the event Odesa was nuked and the Defakchenko family killed, in which she would be elected both the first female and first Kaetif Hetman as part of a larger narrative ploy to goad Sombra de Mar, who had recrafted the Marian Republic into an explicitly Kaetif-friendly, anti-human despotate; they're both Kaetif, but radically opposed in their vision for the future. As the Defakchenkos survived Sombra's attempt to spark World War IV, she probably won't be elevated to that post any time soon, but she takes centre stage in the conceptual final battle between Sombra's Abhorrent army and the rest of the world, duelling against the vile wolf himself.

Yulia was also slated to appear in the aborted Fallout IOT, this time as Generalissima of the Standard-Bearers of the Revolution, an alt-universe expy of the Hetmanate. It was as part of this game's background I crafted her surname; lots of Slavic names have religious connotations, and I can imagine they gain particular poignancy amongst Defakchenko's so-called "adopted children", who are in many ways literal children of the apocalypse.

With the contextual preamble out of the way, I can finally talk about the sketch itself. As ever, the vague picture in mind's eye and the final product do not correspond, but I think I like this better than whatever I was aiming for, especially given how much I ended up simply winging it. The face was an immense struggle, but I daresay it's my best non-deliberately-cartoony fox face yet. Her uniform is that of a Cossack general, exact region indeterminate. They evidently never expected women commanders, as those cylinder-pockets took forever to adjust to a female frame. The badges and medals are nowhere near to scale; originally I was going to adjust the ribbon for the Order of the Gold Star to the Hetmanate's flag scheme, but at greyscale that'd look too close to the Russian flag, and frankly, working for nearly half a day on this infected me with a fair dose of Ukrainian patriotism.

[Originally submitted to DeviantArt May 2013.]