Legacy LD5

Hello everybody - RipRoarRex with another picture! (Three in one day? It's madness!)



Good old Rule 34 strikes again.

For many years, I had completely forgotten about Jake. Indeed, I'd completely forgotten about The Rescuers films altogether. But through various conversations earlier in the year, I was suddenly reminded of Jake - and in turn, having spent much of the past year trying my hand at Disney characters, I found I had a very strong desire to try drawing him.

Continuing the list of projects that I had put on hold over the last few months to complete the relaunch of my website, I started this back in July but only got as far as the basic colouring stage. I had toyed with whether to shade it with a more authentic Disney look or to simply keep it in my own style, and I eventually went for the latter. But I may explore the former in other images in the near future...



I think this one has turned out all right. I've never drawn Jake (or indeed any Disney mice/rat characters) before, but I felt I managed to recapture the style pretty faithfully. I'm not great with hats or clothes, but in keeping them faithful to the simple original drawings, I don't think they look too bad.

I've mentioned on many occasions in the past how a lot of cartoon characters seem to feature certain anatomical inconsistencies or vague features that depend on personal styles and interpretations. In Jake's case, I couldn't work out from reference images whether the dark tips to his feet were meant to be toes (a la Timon) or just long grey claws. My immediate preference was for thinking of them as dark toes, so I drew them that way.

Similarly, there is also some ambiguity as to whether Jake has a digitigrade or plantigrade stance. Given my strong liking for plantigrade feet however, I decided to draw him as though the length from toe to heel is one big flat foot, and gave him heel pads accordingly.

If anyone's curious, you will be seeing more of Jake from me. I'm already pretty far along with my next picture of him, so keep your eyes peeled...



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Jake gives you his own special welcome to Australia by showing you what it really means to go 'Down Under'.

[Direct Link]



RRRex

Okay, I think this one's definitely the best of the bunch in just overall awesomeness...I mean, it looks friggin' like original material.

These are linchpin decisions, and you chose wisely on both counts. I understand that if not for your personal preference these things wouldn't get drawn in the first place, but...

Hm. As you've stated elsewhere, you don't let outsider comments influence your art direction. So why start now, right?

Heh - thanks again, Dino! I was trying to make the linework itself look as close to the original as I could, but I went for my own colouring style. So I can hopefully still get a bit closer yet!






Well sometimes outsider comments do have an effect on my art, but it depends whether my preferences take priority. I've no idea whether the choices I made here were actually 'correct' or not based on the original design, but I don't think it matters enough to stop me drawing them how I want them to look.