@bobambee: Stay tuned for the Redux: I always skew toward self-deprecation with my sketchwork, but the 2013 portrait is hands down one of my Top 5 Best Ever.
The Red Lotus by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)
Lady Akane, alias the Red Lotus; leader of the Scarlet Lancers, one of the two terrorist factions in the IOT game The Multipolar World, and the sworn enemy of dictator Christos Xinjiang.
Her original concept derived from an unrealized character for the tragically short-lived WIM-IOT, a devious kitsune megalomaniac commanding a Japanese authoritarian state. His Machiavellian personality was amended into something more republican, as were the Lancers made genuine freedom-fighters, although his black motif remained intact. Maybe a day or two before I started the sketch for his formal introduction into the game, I was inspired to change the character to a woman to further signify the Lancers as antithetical to Christos and his régime. And so the Red Lotus was born.
Her costume was originally all-black, but lightening it up looks nicer, highlights shading, and helps move away from the oppressive aesthetic she originally derived from. This sketch also serves as practice for a) female characters and b) animal faces, which in spite of my common association with foxes (on DYOS at least), I find considerably more challenging to make unique than human visages. I'm quite happy with this, although I don't know what happened with that tuft over her forehead.
Category:
Rating:
Everyone
Class:
Finished Work
Submitted:
1y212d ago
Tags:
In These Portfolios
Comments & Critiques (7)
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(4)
Average Rating:
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Posted: Thursday, 04 May, 2023 @ 09:45 PM
@DaGrandDragonn: *her :x
But yeah, I don't know exactly why but I just got it in my head one day that when magic foxes 'idle', their tails fan out in constant motion—as I describe it in the (semi-public) novelization, like kelp in the shallows. I s'pose if we assume the number represents their life's accumulated wisdom, it's an expression of their expanded consciousness diffusing out in all directions.
Thanks!
Posted: Monday, 08 May, 2023 @ 02:59 AM
@Thorvald: lol sorry, I didn’t notice the description. Hmm, I see it everywhere, now that I think about it. Only a few kitsune I can think of keep their idle tails in a naturalistic resting position.
Posted: Monday, 08 May, 2023 @ 10:06 PM
@DaGrandDragonn: Flaunt 'em if you got 'em, I guess. :p I do know in Egyptian art, the funny paint-the-whole-body-in-profile perspective is intentional iconography; so fanning the tails may be an unspoken custom in similar vein.
Her stance, the flow of her tails I’m in love with (especially how you shaded her fur!). Authority just emanating from that design, the white really did add that pop.