Hi everybody,
RipRoarRex here, bringing you three brand new characters for my collection!
Introducing new character Number One... The Duke, Sebastian Farringdon.
For a while now I'd been contemplating introducing a fox character to my collection. Maybe it's the memory of Disney's Robin Hood talking, or perhaps the image I had when I read Fantastic Mr. Fox during childhood, but I have always liked imagining foxes as being quite intelligent and sophisticated. I also felt that I wanted to create a character with a sense of upper class authority and wealthy, country roots - not necessarily royalty, but more of landowning nobility. I also liked the idea of making a sophisticated character who possesses a dangerous, sadistic streak, ruthless and abusive in his contempt for the common man. The Duke was therefore the culmination of those ideas, and the name Sebastien just seemed to fit perfectly in my head.
Now I know nothing about dress and costume design, so I largely resorted to improvising an outfit which matched my idea of a landed nobleman. As such, if there are certain elements of the costume which seem a bit odd, my lack of knowledge or interest in clothing will be to blame! I wanted to play with the idea of big, sturdy brown boots (not meant to be wellies but I just didn't like the laced look!) as well as a variation on the usual white socks. The rest of it was really just a simple vision out of my head, which on reflection actually seems like an accidental combination of Disney's Beast and Don Karnage! Truthfully though, I would not necessarily plan on sticking with one outfit for the character in future work, but rather use variations on the same theme in each piece.
As for the character himself, I wanted to make Seb look a little more slim and tall in build than my other characters; not big muscles everywhere but still more than enough subtle strength to overpower Mike! I've never really drawn foxes before (Cassie was never meant to be a vixen and I'm actually now in the process of changing her colouration) so I struggled to get the face right, but I tried to make the snout look a little more slender and elongated - hopefully not too much so though.
A few of you might actually recognise a portion of this picture, as Seb's boot was one of the 15 sections included in my "
Great Unfinished Collection" which I recently submitted into my scraps on FurAffinity. I actually drew and partly coloured this last autumn, but it ended up being put on hold until now. On reflection, the shape of the snout/face and some of the proportions are a little off, but I felt it too much work to go back to the paper and correct them.
I'm usually not one for detailed backgrounds, but I had always had a vision in my mind of the kind of setting I wanted to fit the character: some sort of dimly lit room in the quiet corner of a big country estate. The trouble is that I know as much about interior design as I do about costume(!) so again I largely improvised, using the classic method of applying highlights to a black background to create the shapes. Some of the angles are a bit squiffy and the room doesn't look as big as I originally intended, but I'm actually pleasantly surprised with the way it came out.
I already have another piece in the pipeline for this character as well as further ideas in mind, but it could be some time before they come to fruition. In any case, I hope the new character is to your liking!
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Seb doesn't take kindly to people addressing him incorrectly. When Mike commits an inexcusable faux pas, the Duke sternly educates the spaniel on the order of nobility by teaching him what 'rank' is...
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