10 Years

I am having a fairly bad night. So rather than hover over a dying pet, I made up this montage of how my artwork has changed over the last ten years. I thought there would be no changes in style, but I was very, very wrong. I have gone from almost only ever using pen and ink to a vast range of materials, which is probably the best thing about my progression.

I know that a lot of you out there know of Chris Goodwin's amazing work,
including his charming character 'Abe'. Now, I've a fondness for good-natured
kindly-looking guys myself, so here he is, shopping at the wonderful (and wonderfully camp) 'Antons',
which is a simply amazing store in Melbourne, Australia. The only reason the
mule looks so peacable is that he has not yet had a chance to browse the
pricetags - the simply gorgeous clothes start at a price calculated to give
cardiac arrest and head right on up from there.
However, aside from the numerous problems I have already spotted in this image,
one is glaring enough that it requires comment. I used Chris' 'Supermodel' sheet
to get an idea of Abe's proportions and so on, then put it away.
Bad mistake.
For when I compared them again, after I'd finished, I noticed...
My picture is identical in pose. I certainly had not intended this, and my
subconscious fooled me nicely. Damnation. That will teach me.

This African Hunting Dog came partially from my trips to the local zoo, where there is a pack of these beautiful animals. I particularly admire their lovely painted fur, and rather wanted to see one when I was in Botswana, but alas they are hard to spot in the wild.

There we go, a somewhat gothier version of Aheria, who is
of course copyright herself. Her hair seems to have become
a little overwhelming...but she does seem to have maned
wolf blood, so...

You can find Aheria's work here on the VCL!

An Al-Miradj from something that I have been working on recently. Mostly I'm experimenting with Computones and trying not to horribly suck.

Alex from the online comic LatexBlue. Alex belongs to Dragonfly. There you go!

The world needs more rabbits in top hats. Even stuffed ones.

Mmm. Self indulgent angst. Lots of fun. And lots of smeary detail all over the place. Welcome to Alienation.
"I never understood alienation. Alienation from what? You have to want to be part of something in order to feel alienated from it." -- Boyd Rice. Silverblue the Gothbunny is copyright me, I guess.

'Anatomy of a Perkygoff'. This is what happens when I actually try to draw something angst ridden and scary. This is what I get, damnit. Now I'll have no artistic credibility...hey...is that KMFDM I hear playing in the background? *perk!* *dashesoff*

The wonderful Anger_Bunny of FurryMUCK (and Velar come to think of it). A jackalope, with a t-shirt that I swear isn't quite as obcene as I've accidentally made it look! Anger_Bunny is copyright himself.

After feeling mildly depressed I threw this together. No pencil, no prelim, just straight ink to paper. Silverblue the Gothbunny curled up when any shelter will do.

Arphalia, if Arphalia was from the 16th Century.

And looked vaguely Bishi.

Arphalia is copyright themselves, as well you know. Done pen to paper direct, coloured in prisma markers. Pretty much a 'bored at work' scribble, and what better to do than draw pretty furries?

Asagwe of the Boneguard, er, who I am currently working for iRL. For those of you who remember Lacunae, yes, this is the same character! Here's hoping that this doesn't get moved to scraps - for some reason my laptop doesn't tend to show dust and speckles so things look more crud on other monitors than they do on mine.

Asagwe is Copyright himself.

This is Asagwe. He's a Child of Bast-Imret. He has a wetbar. He's coming to Anthrocon. He's copyright himself, or he won't make you drinks.

Ashryn the jacquel peels off some plastic gloves. It's definitely better not to ask, don't you think?

My mother, being a wonderful artist, and much better than
myself, gave me some Copic markers for Christmas. I was
thinking idly about the seasons, and how much I love the
gothic style just for the intricacy and beauty of the
costumes. Out came Autumn, a Maned Wolf who is near the
end of her three month cycle and is pictured summoning the
season of Winter in.

The piece has marker, greylead, pen ink, brush ink, and
coloured pencil. Autumn is my first piece for 2002, and I'm
quite pleased with her.

Aya Braeden is copyright her player.

I found myself doodling this in photoshop while roleplaying
online. I like precisely one part - the light in the eye on
the viewer's right. I'm sorry, Aya, I promise I'll do
something better next time!

A little inked sketch of Aya Braeden and her partner Mallin.

Still deciding whether to colour or shade :)

The coloured (and very sweet) Aya with her partner Mallin.
I'd been reading Gloomcookie somewhat, and it has a rather
cute scene with a couple of goths going for a picnic in
a graveyard, so after wracking my brains I decided to have
Aya and Mallin doing the same thing. These two are Copyright
their respective owners. *snug*

Mint is a barkeep, and a rather calm one at that. She's also an experiment with drawing the faces of horses in a more accurate fashion.

The experimentation with ink continues, and here we have a bat femme posing after just having finished dinner. Batbabe is Copyright 2001 Silverblue.

Bathory the perky vampire bat, in honour of this year's Anthrocon. Pen and ink sketch, coloured with Copic Markers, and screwed around with in Photoshop. Prints will be for sale if anyone really cares.

This is an attempt at an anthropomorphic betta fish. I love my bettas. For swishy little queer-looking dudes with gorgeous colours they sure think they're macho. And the bubble nests are cute too.

A feline executes the beginings of an ascetic ritual, feeding the power with his own blood. For some reason, I particularly enjoyed doing the background charts for this picture.

The one, the only, Bloodwright of FurryMUCK and sundry other places.
Currently he's being cautioned by Silverblue not to eat the Guests. At least,
not *yet*...
Bloodwright is Copyright his player. And Silverblue is Copyright me, of course.
Not that anyone would want to steal him. I hear those gigantic vampiric dragons
can be hard to placate...

Inspired by both the faerie tale story of Blue Beard (and I'm sure everyone knows it enough that there is no point in repeating it here), and Nick Cave's song 'Do you love me?' which is a wonderful anthem to obsession and blood. The pencils did not come out nearly as delicately as I had hoped, so it looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me to develop my colouring skills. I may do more of these little pictures, as I do enjoy them.

Brams

This is the completed colours of Brams, my Fruitbat Pooka character. Brams is, admittedly, rather flaming, but he does enjoy it.

Gods...am I ill? Where on earth did this anime-style thing come from? My only condolence is that he's wearing tartan pants. Anime bunnies indeed.

A small Derwent pencils piece when I was feeling whimsical. It's Silverblue again, wearing a butterfly costume while looking quietly serious.

A caracal in traditional Egyptian clothing.

Carrying on from Rook in the Garret - another one of the
weird bird-headed creatures of the unseelie. Friends
suggested that they actually all look like this - this is
why they wear masks, but I think Carrion is possibly a
little different. Dead and dried up and dessicated and
cruel.