Legacy LD5

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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RRRex

A new direction... a good direction! There's far more to power than stature, and Duke Smellyfeetington certainly fits the bill!

I do love that eyebrow, and for the life of me I can't determine if the face would be improved by a monocle. I guess it depends how close this character's time period is to the age of wooden ships and iron men...

Wow, that's an awesome pic and pose! It's funny, foxes and vixens used to be the number one staple of the furry community. Everyone was a fox. If you look hard enough, you can still see the remnants of that dominance, but this pic (amongst other hornier thoughts) makes me think how that dominance has faded, and now pop culture trends determine the dominance du jour.

But way to poke the subs hornynerves with the superiority/dominance angle, Rex.

Well my problem there is I cannot find monocle-wearing sexy, so I'm afraid that's a no for me! But truthfully I don't actually consider this character to be from a bygone age - to me he is still a modern day character, but living in a very old-fashioned country estate with all the traditional ways of the aristocracy.

Open to interpretation though, I suppose - hadn't thought about it like that!

("Duke Smellyfeetington" - now why didn't I think of that?... Heh!)

Thanks, Sprotchy!





Thanks Dino! I think wolves and huskies are probably "what the kids are into these days" but there are still a lot of fox characters out there. I didn't want to be seen to be jumping on some bandwagon because I wanted to emphasise the personality and profile over the species - though I personally like to think of these particular examples as going hand in hand.

Not that it makes much difference - loads of people think of Cassie as a vixen and some even mistake Rocky's red husky colouring for that of a fox, so I guess people see what they wanna see!

Interesting point, though...the whole view of foxes as being noble...it's not really from the animals themselves, but from Disney movies and some other stories...or even from the flip-flopping* of the role of the fox in that English fox hunt stuff. Like...a wolf or a husky, gets the embodiment just from the animal, not from any mythos. Curse you, Mr. Brisby, for THE FUNNEST PLACE ON EARTH! and poisoning our youthful minds with stereotypes.

I mean, if I were to apply a personality to a fox based on a real fox, they'd be a little trickster thief, like a raccoon.



* NO JOKES PLEASE

I know what you mean. It is a quirky characteristic that seems to have been perpetuated through something, but it's hard to pin down exactly what. Certainly there are a great deal of other species that are perhaps more naturally deserving of a 'noble' persona, but I rather like this vision!

You can thank me later.

But Dino IS bacteria.

Nice pic! I still like foxes.

*smirk* Well, can't argue with science.