Super quickie sketch before bed (and because I'm late getting to bed again (which means I've once more failed at trying to get to bed early, really need to stop it with the bloody late nights! XD), no story with this one, sorry.
Zara and Dak playing blind push hands during one of their common training sessions. Zara is supposed to have her goggles around her neck but I forgot to draw them before I coloured the top. Oops.
A prickle of nervousness crawled up Silver's spine and settled at the nape of his neck as he followed Aurelius up the very familiar corridor towards one of The Geisha's private rooms. He didn't usually get nervous going into or even at meets. He was good at what he did and had an excellent track record for getting favourable outcomes for himself and his employer (not necessarily so much for the other party but that wasn't really his problem).
He hadn't thought twice when Strike had told him that he would be sending his kids to this meet instead of attending himself. He'd figured it would be a walk in the park, a regrettable occurrence for Strike and the Reavers and the pretty little lamb Strike was sending to slaughter.
Felt like posting a quick screenie as I haven't done a public wip for a while (there's a couple on Patreon that are well before this stage). Still have to do his wings, hands, feet and tail but am pretty happy with how he turned out.
Because I'm nearing completion I'm getting that post-completion anxiety of IS IT GOOD ENOUGH? HAVE I MISSED ANYTHING? AM I GOING TO HATE IT AS SOON AS I CALL IT DONE?
On the bright side the last thing hasn't happened for a very long time, and as I'm at the point where I haven't felt the need to completely redo all my bases I am reasonably certain that if I find anything I'm unahppy with I should be able to just fix it.
Ruby gasped as Quartz suddenly grabbed her by the neck and threw her onto the top of the crate like she weighed nothing. Well to him she probably didn't.
"Don't," he growled warningly.
Ruby remained where she was, rubbing her neck and quietly catching her breath. Quartz looked away, simmering. Behind him the rest of the crew shifted uneasily as the immediate silence deepened uncomfortably. The ambient night life around them seemed to be of a different world, the "normal" world that all of them at least in this moment wished they were part of. The "normal" world was safe. Their immediate future contained more danger than they were used to.
Quartz eventually looked up, his slightly flared wings and lowered tail indicating definite annoyance. "Did you know?" he demanded, his voice low and dangerous.
Ruby frowned. "I knew they hung out," she answered carefully, "I didn't know she'd claimed him."
Ae'nur touched down a sensible distance from the water's edge, watching with a smile as her exuberant eight year old son landed knee deep with a splash, flicking up a spray with wings and tail and giggling with delight. His hair was only just long enough to pull into a topknot like his father's and he wore the pathetic little makeup brush with such pride. She had struggled not to laugh when she had done his hair and she struggled not to laugh now as she watched it fluffing about on the top of his head.
She started strolling down the beach towards one of their usual spots, and Tsa'run paced her, cheerfully playing chasey with the waves as they lapped gently against the sand. "[What are we training today, Mama]?" he inquired, executing some beautiful footwork as he danced gracefully around another wave, avoiding getting any wetter than he already was.
Sunday streaming was a bit messy today and will probably be messy over the next couple of Sundays as I continue struggling with logistics, and then will stop completely because I'm going home for a month!
Then it got cut short because there was a few too many heavy thundercracks that sounded on top of my house so I shut the computer down.
In my continued attempts to try for a sketch every day I decided to do reference/study style shots (I find those hard going as well but easier than pinups, at least they serve some kind of purpose, I am slightly addicted to storytelling I guess). It worked out pretty well for this one, got done pretty quickly.
Then I decided to colour it.
Oh well, I can call it a colour reference or something now I guess.
Worked on this the last couple of stream sessions, posted works in progress to Patreon and realised that I've been completely forgetting to post public wips (which is completely unsurprising as while I do post occasional works in progress they are occasional so it was actually pretty easy for me to forget with all the other stuff going on). I also wanted to show @jedau the kind of stuff that takes me forrrreeeeeeeeevvvaaaaaaarrrrrrrr XD
This was supposed to be a sketch of Megan (to the tune of Black Fingernails, Red Wine by Eskimo Joe which is what spawned the original concept, I have several failed sketches in my sketchbook). Then it kinda grew. Out of control. Like most of the things I do.
Thanks to the support of my generous patreons, I managed to hit my first goal! :D
The goal was $10/mth with the intent of spreading the love a bit. So currently 5 creators I've been following for a while but didn't really have the funds to support are getting $1/mth each and hopefully I can up that a little at some point in the future and perhaps support other interesting looking projects.
The creators I'm currently supporting (in the order they're listed on my Patreon list because that was convenient) are:
The young High Prince fled the conference room, the nightmarish chaos fading behind him, only to be replaced by pursuing wing beats. Tears blurred his vision. Zul'jinn normally loved flying through the open areas but now they were too open, there was nowhere to hide. Behind him he could just hear the sounds of crossbows arming up. How could this happen? I don't want to die! He was barely aware of the nearby mewling sound, not really registering the fact that he was the source of it.
There was a walkway, maybe he could duck inside and hide. He wouldn't reach it in time. He didn't want to die, he didn't want to die he didn't...
Unlike the silence of the pod, which was broken only by the pods own humming, Dakarai's head was full of tumultuous, confused thoughts.
They'd looked. They'd kept looking. They hadn't given up.
The last few days...or was it weeks? He wasn't sure. Either way, it had been a seriously unpleasant blur.
He'd hurt Zara. He glanced sideways at her, perched nervously on the comfortably worn seat beside him. That had been the start of the downward spiral. They'd been training, he couldn't understand the technique Juan was showing them. Zara picked up everything so easily. Frustration was normal, but then it had been intolerable. He hadn't meant to hit her that hard. Then Juan had confronted him about his stim usage. Dakarai bristled slightly. Juan wasn't his father, he didn't have any right to tell him what to do.
But he didn't give up.