[Art] Keaton the Black Jackal: Commission Preview~ (21/10/09)

[Zedd]

Lovely Keaton..Just wish ya updated your FA page more as wells

[Sunblink]

Hey everyone, point and laugh at my attempts to revitalize my topic before it gets locked.

Here's the art jam I promised. Not much of an art jam, since I still owe artwork (like to Zedd - don't worry, dude, I haven't forgotten), but that will be rectified in the future. I just need something to bolster my art topic back to the top of the page before it's locked for inactivity. Most of these pictures were drawn as Christmas gifts or because I wanted people to pay me out of the kindness of my heart. Anyway, enjoy the first part of the so-far minuscule art jam thus far.

CLICK HERE: Picture #1 - Cogidubnus

Picture finished around - um, January.

I really didn't like this picture when I finished it. But actually, I kind of like it now, mostly because of the facial expression. Cogidubnus is surprisingly hard to draw. Don't let him deceive you, people. His character design is full of lies.

Yeah, I said it, Cog. I see right through you.

CLICK HERE: Picture #2 - Rynkura for Aisha

Picture finished around... the first few days of January, I guess.

On the flipside, this is a picture I really really liked when I finished it, but now I feel I could have done better. Mostly because of the upper-body anatomy and the length of Rynkura's neck. Really, there is an explanation behind it besides my quite obvious inadequacy. Mostly it's the armor, which was the reason I liked the picture to begin with. I hate drawing armor, so I was really intimidated by drawing Rynkura's armor. After I did some reference-researching and whatnot, I tried drawing it, and it turned out better than I imagined. I even tried drawing an armor-clad character in a much larger picture I'll be showing you guys later.

Aisha seemed to like it, though.

CLICK HERE: Picture #3 - Daryil

Also finished around January.

"To lollipops, great taste at a low, low price..."

Fan art for Tapewolf. Unfortunately, I think I really screwed up Daryil in this picture in my ambition to try and make him look as awesome as I felt he deserved. In Future History he's usually described as a gray fox, so I wasn't sure if he had any extra markings... which is why he has those wonky markings on his body and the spiffy wings. Unfortunately, this was so beyond my initial envisioning of Daryil that I'm just not happy with this picture anymore I'm going to redraw Daryil in the future with a much better design, I swear. 

Actually, I have a few ideas about a picture regarding him in the 100 Themes series, most of which involve humorous depictions. Weird, since most of 100 Themes is emo-central.

Oh, but before anyone remarks - that's not a mole on his face; that's part of his marking. My intention was to draw Daryil's markings similarly to his clan marking so it would appear logical where he got the inspiration to design it, or whatnot. And that is not a goatee-beard he has. That's part of his hair hidden behind his chin.

CLICK HERE: Bonus Picture - Original Character: Jamenaratu

To flesh this art jam out, here's something I finished a few days ago, of an original character I made. More information about him can be found in the DeviantArt submission of this picture ( CLICK HERE), and a profile image of him complete with history and personality notes will probably be finished in the future.

To summarize Jamen without going into any depth, Jamen is a gay pyromaniac who also suffers from manic depression (bipolar  disorder). He is a half-Demon, or Demi-Demon, and was thereby persecuted for it when he resided in the Mortal world. His experiences have left him a little bit emotionally rattled (actually, very much so), so he demands love and affection. For this reason he has a polygamous (polyandrous?) relationship with two other men, Daphiel and Ihril, which quite fortunately tends to curb his obsession with lighting things on fire since he really only turns to those destructive tendencies when he feels emotionally exhausted or bereft of warmth. His habitual fire-loving revolves almost entirely around his flip-flopping emotions, as well as some other nasty things. Really, it's hard to define him without going excessively into his history, but when I get his profile out things will be clearer.

That's all of the pictures for now. In the future, expect some more pictures from the 100 Themes series. I have something nice.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Tapewolf]

Here's the art jam I promised. Not much of an art jam, since I still owe artwork (like to Zedd - don't worry, dude, I haven't forgotten), but that will be rectified in the future.

I'm cure I've seen that Cog one before... anyway.  Rynkura has turned out quite well.  There seems to be a slight blip in the way the texture follows the cloth at one point, but apart from that minor niggle it's very nice.

The one of Daryil is pretty good - I'll be giving Ren that as a reference for Daryil in Project Future.  I saw Jamen on DA last night, but I still think he's adorable.

[Cogidubnus]

Yeah, I said it, Cog. I see right through you.

Ohnoes! My evil plans are ruiiiiined~ D:
Although seriously, I love that picture to death, Keats.

And Jamen is like the cutest Pyromaniac ever.

[xHaZxMaTx]

...because I wanted people to pay me...

And how exactly are they supposed to do that?

CLICK HERE: Picture #3 - Daryil

His left arm looks kinda funky, like he's trying to reach outward by only moving his shoulder.

CLICK HERE: Bonus Picture - Original Character: Jamenaratu

Bish~

That's all of the pictures for now. In the future, expect some more pictures from the 100 Themes series. I have something nice.

She's not lying! D:

I'm sure I've seen that Cog one before...

Gee, I wonder why.


Awesome stuff as always, Keats!  Keep up the great work.

[Zedd]

I love these all

[Sunblink]

100 Themes #74: Are You Challenging Me?

Time Taken:

• Drawing: No clue (a very, very long time)

Currently Listening To: "In the Navy," by the Village People (ha ha @ Stygian )

[insert long string of gibberish here]

Oh dear GOD I... this took so fucking long, and I'm overjoyed with the results of my hard work. I couldn't be more proud, and I hope you guys enjoy this piece of work. I don't know if this picture will be colored in the future, but it will be a very long time before I tackle that project, considering the immense detail applied to this image. Inking this thing would kill me. For this picture I decided to try something a bit new with my style which will hopefully improve the way I draw furries: particularly, I'm going to research what the actual animals look like and adopt their distinctive characteristics to help differentiate them in my pictures. I tried doing that with Qaisyne. She's a lioness, and in order to draw her I had to look up real animals, while completely abstaining from popular depictions such as the Lion King and et cetera. The reason behind this is because I don't want any other styles to influence my work, since I've been unconsciously adopting methods of drawing from other people. This is largely a trial and error process, but hopefully I'll benefit from it in the end.

Jyraneth doesn't look like a jackal, much, because her ears are folded back.

Depicted in this picture are Jyraneth and Qaisyne Kamei'Sin, the clan leaders of their respective clans. Jyraneth has a bit of a fashion change, as you can see. She's a bit into gothic lolita dresses. Much praise goes to Mel Dragonkitty for helping me out with the front of the gown. <3 The wing-tentacles were very improvised, especially since I had never drawn them before. Ultimately, I'm happy with how Jyraneth's turned out, but Qaisyne's are a little wonky. That's all I don't like about the picture. Mostly everything here was a test of my skills, from the details in Jyraneth's lace to Qaisyne's armor design.

By the way, critique is pretty much optional for this picture. I don't mind if you critique it.

Cheers, everybody.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Tapewolf]

For this picture I decided to try something a bit new with my style which will hopefully improve the way I draw furries: particularly, I'm going to research what the actual animals look like and adopt their distinctive characteristics to help differentiate them in my pictures. I tried doing that with Qaisyne. She's a lioness, and in order to draw her I had to look up real animals

It worked.  Very well.  The only thing I missed was that I thought Qaisyne was male with a breastplate - but as soon as I saw it - before reading the blurb -I instantly thought 'lion'.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I like the logo at the bottom... ;-]

[SpottedKitty]

Mindbogglingly good.

Also, I like the contrast in Jyraneth, between her disembowel-you-as-soon-as-look-at-you expression, and the lacy frilly dress.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Personally, I find the folks who have blood up to their elbows, but are still smiling sweetly and wearing lacy frilly dress etc, more disturbing.

Hence why Regina is such a good design...

[Sunblink]

La de da. Another 100 Themes picture for you all, this time a colored image which took me forever to complete. Like the last picture, I'm very happy with this one. I seem to be on a roll.

100 Themes #48: Childhood

Currently Listening To: "Creek Mary's Blood," by Nightwish
Time Spent:

• Drawing: Approximately 3 days.
• Inking: Forgot.
• Coloring: I lost count after the fifth day.

FYI, the fellow standing in the background of this picture is not one of my characters, as the copyrights say. That character belongs to Stygian. His presence in this picture implies more than just a mere cameo. However, I'm not going to indulge precisely what his role is.

So bother Stygian.

This entire picture was an experiment. It was an experiment in backgrounds (the multiple layers of red curls and outlines were created entirely by pencil, on one layer), special effects (such as the veins on the ground and Stygian's 'corruption' effect around his eyes, temples, and hand, which were created thanks to some very helpful Photoshop brushes)... and a new style of highlighting I'll be using more often now. I used to use the dodge tool to highlight most of my pictures, but the results of using that tool were often extremely messy and created unsightly pale blotches all over the picture. Not to mention I couldn't reverse the effects since I had to use them on the same layer as the colors if I was unsatisfied.

Now I use the pencil tool, with the help of the lasso tool to keep everything nice and isolated to clean shapes. The best examples of highlighting is on Stygian's suit and Keaton's wings and hair. Even the shading was a new style for me, although it isn't as apparent. Someone on DeviantArt told me that my shading style is slightly monotonous and in need of some more dynamics, so I decided to experiment by using different-sized brushes for larger and smaller regions throughout the picture. Best examples, once again, are most evident in Stygian's suit and Keaton's wings. The bat-sprite floating in front of Keaton's face was drawn away from the image, then cut and pasted on its own layer, where I gave it the outer glow effect.

The whole picture reeks of symbolism, I guess. In essence, all the black shapes writhing around Keaton's form is pure darkness, and it's gradually creeping towards Keaton, who's in the sole patch of light in the picture. It's as though she's unaware of the corruption taking place around her, like it's on a separate plane of its own, because she's too distracted by the innocent little creature Stygian created to keep her occupied blah blah blah okay you know what I don't give a crap. Most of this stuff is improvised, anyway, since this picture was definitely just that: improvised. I was fucking around too much, but I'm not complaining since this came out well.

Again, critiques/constructive criticisms are optional, but nevertheless appreciated. I prefer constructive criticism over critique, actually, since people compare and contrast the flaws and good parts of the picture.

And before anyone asks: I don't know how old Keaton is in the picture. At first I drew her as though she was five, but she ended up becoming larger than I intended. The reason Stygian is so short is because I fucked up there. You can only imagine my frustration when I found out and didn't want to erase my hard work on Stygian's somber expression and facial features. But I managed to rectify the situation by making it look like he's partially encapsulated in darkness. So if something seems wrong in the height differences, chalk it up to his lower body being, essentially, gone.

The aforementioned Photoshop vein brushes were respectfully downloaded from this website: Click here.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Tapewolf]

That character belongs to Stygian. His presence in this picture implies more than just a mere cameo. However, I'm not going to indulge precisely what his role is.

How about divulging it? 
(Sorry, but it had to be done.  I could just see llearch or someone else doing it if I didn't beat them to it...)

As it picture it's quite interesting, and well-executed.  Rather more disturbing than I'm really happy with, although that's probably the idea.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

That character belongs to Stygian. His presence in this picture implies more than just a mere cameo. However, I'm not going to indulge precisely what his role is.

How about divulging it? 
(Sorry, but it had to be done.  I could just see llearch or someone else doing it if I didn't beat them to it...)

I wouldn't dare. Keats would kill Witt.

Or, worse, take his drink away! ;-]

[Sunblink]

How about divulging it? 
(Sorry, but it had to be done.  I could just see llearch or someone else doing it if I didn't beat them to it...)

lol no. Styg would kill me. XD So would my inner writer. I've already told too many secrets to Keaton's backstory up here. There are hardly any surprises left.

As it picture it's quite interesting, and well-executed.  Rather more disturbing than I'm really happy with, although that's probably the idea.

Thank you very much. Though as for the disturbing bit... trust me, there's going to be far more disturbing things in the 100 Themes series. I'm probably going to draw that particular "thing" next, unless I get sidetracked by much nicer, prettier ideas. It's either the disturbing idea or the really pretty one next.

I'll probably do the crazy-disturbing thing first, then the pretty one next, as something for people to get over.

I wouldn't dare. Keats would kill Witt.

Or, worse, take his drink away! ;-]

I like Witt too much to kill him off, for the record.

Plus, a drunk Witt is a happy Witt. Or something similar to happiness.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Tapewolf]

Thank you very much. Though as for the disturbing bit... trust me, there's going to be far more disturbing things in the 100 Themes series. I'm probably going to draw that particular "thing" next, unless I get sidetracked by much nicer, prettier ideas. It's either the disturbing idea or the really pretty one next.

Well, there's disturbing and disturbing.  This one creeps me out because it makes no sense but at the same time can't be good.
Something overtly bad can be less disturbing because it makes more sense, if you see what I mean...

[Sunblink]

Thank you very much. Though as for the disturbing bit... trust me, there's going to be far more disturbing things in the 100 Themes series. I'm probably going to draw that particular "thing" next, unless I get sidetracked by much nicer, prettier ideas. It's either the disturbing idea or the really pretty one next.

Well, there's disturbing and disturbing.  This one creeps me out because it makes no sense but at the same time can't be good.
Something overtly bad can be less disturbing because it makes more sense, if you see what I mean...

I see what you mean. Usually being subtle works a lot more than just being outright lurid, because being lurid often means being tasteless and sacrificing art and emotionality for shock value, and subtlety relies on harnessing the power of one's imagination. In the end, I'd much rather get a genuine emotional reaction from people rather than a cheaply-won response from emotionally manipulative scenes.

Really, this picture was initially supposed to be teeming with creatures which looked like they were part of Keaton's imagination, but then I ended up messing up Stygian's height and decided to do all the black shapes and stuff. I like it much better this way, and I realize I'd much rather leave the interpretation up to other people instead of half-assing a pretentious attempt at symbolism myself.

In your case, I'm rather surprised the picture came across as so... sinister. I was so satisfied with the "ooh, shiny!" factor that I didn't realize it was so creepy. XD

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Tapewolf]

I think it's Keaton's expression which does it.

[Sunblink]

I think it's Keaton's expression which does it.

Ironically I wasn't too happy with her expression at first. Now I am happy with it, but I just thought she was staring off into space at first.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

She was.

And then you filled the space with imagination. ;-]

[Paladin Sheppard]

Indeed the box calls it true.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

... The box called it facetious, but it might well be true. ;-]

[Zedd]

Heh very cute

[Sunblink]

Woo. Done with one of the 100 Themes pictures.

#76: Broken Pieces

Time Taken:

• Drawing: 2 Days
• Inking: 2 Days
• Coloring: 2 Days

A fairly consistent amount of time was spent on this picture. The coloring process went by much more smoothly than it normally would due to my new Wacom art tablet (BIRTHDAY PRESENT!). It's an insanely accurate model, so I've been having a lot of fun with toying with the precision and the pressure in order to create varied depth to the lines. But you can't really see that in this picture, so never mind. Really, the tablet has just sped up the process somewhat, and made things MUCH cleaner and nicer. A good example being the shading on the giant wine splash at the final panel.

By the way, this scene was taken from Tapewolf's story "The Future History of Jakob Pettersohn." Tapewolf suggested the concept for "Broken Pieces" a long time ago.

Enjoy.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Gabi]

Broken pieces has a broken link... but I've seen the other themes. They're scary.

Edit: I've seen it now. That's the best one yet! I loved the expression on Keaton's face, and the way the glass dropped.

[Sunblink]

Broken pieces has a broken link... but I've seen the other themes. They're scary.

It does? The link worked just fine for me. I'll tinker with it a little.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Gabi]

Nevermind, Keaton. You fixed it while I was typing, so I've edited my post.

[Brunhidden]

wow, this last one looks a lot more smooth and animated then the normal keaton work.

neither a 'good' thing or a 'bad' thing but rather an 'im impressed you have such range' thing

[Tapewolf]

Oh, that has come out very nicely.  The DMFA-like wall effects are good, though they might be a little stark in the final pane - if it were me, I'd have considered blurring them.

[Zedd]

Very nice