Legacy LD5

Hi everyone - RipRoarRex signing off for 2009 and indeed the patronisingly-named 'Noughties' with my final piece of artwork for the decade!




Part of me will be rather glad to see the back of 2009; given the terrible art block (or possibly blocks) I have struggled with and problems in my real life, this year has not been my most artistically productive by any means. However, I'd like to think that I have made up for lack of quantity with plenty of quality.


I don't really know where the inspiration for this came from - I think I'd been looking at some of Wookiee's rather delicious Anubis pictures on FA for a bit too long, and suddenly felt the need to try drawing him myself. As per usual, it was far more difficult than I had anticipated - I love dynamic poses and angles like this, but as much as I do them frequently enough, they never get any easier. Getting the proportions right was as much about guesswork as anything else, and there are some sections that I'm still not happy with. To make matters worse, I have always struggled with canine faces, which is actually one of the big reasons why there is a marked lack of Rocky and Cassie artwork in my gallery. Having stared at various photographs and drawings of canine heads for a fair while before attempting this one, I think this is one of my better efforts.


As for the subject itself, I've come to the conclusion that there isn't a right or wrong way of drawing Anubis - the various references I used seem to depict him with a wide variety of jewellery, clothing and various other trinkets. What it does allow for therefore is a bit of creativity and personal choice, so I'm hoping my interpretation looks reasonably good. The background and scenery is not my best - I rushed it a bit because I didn't really know what I was doing. Worse than that was drawing all the tiny furries in the foreground, only to discover that the detail I put into them was lost when I resized the picture. Despite all that though, I think this is one of my better pieces in terms of technique/execution and visual impact.


Anyway, seeing as everyone probably has parties to go to, I shall bring a close to my jabbering and wish you all a very Happy New Year. Here's hoping for an enjoyable, successful and productive 2010!



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One would be well advised not to disturb the sleeping pharaohs of the Egyptian Pyramids; Anubis doesn't take kindly to tourists...




Additionally, given that this is the resized version, I've also uploaded the original 2MB (1857 x 2760) version which shows all the tiny furries in full detail (click here). If you look closely, you might be able to spot a few things:

• Whilst most of the tiny furries are yet to be trodden on, there is a dalmatian belatedly offering help to a fox trapped under one of Anubis' toes.
• For the purposes of comic irony, there is a tiny jackal in the foreground dressed up as Anubis!
• As is often the case, Mike has made a cameo appearance in this picture wearing his usual green T-shirt and cream-coloured trousers. See if you can find him!

RRRex

Now that's very nifty! That has to be my favourite picture from you; and it's almost mundane! No socks or special foot shots, just a few squishy folks.

Now that's good stuff! I feel pretty good about myself, because with my keen raptor eyes, I was able to spot all of the things you mentioned. Score one for raptas! On a more relevant note, I think this is by far your best furry drawing yet! Do all great ar-teests just say that their art is crap before you see it just to make it seems better when you actually see it? If so, you need not make the effort! All that talk about not getting the face right, blasphemy! You got it down great. Excellent job!

Hey, he is the death god - maybe he got bored with the slim amount of new souls that make it over to his realm?!
Great stuff RRR! Black fur is a BITCH to do, especially with your outstanding shading! Really the only thing that I could imagine making this any more excellent would be an armageddon class pawprint with the impact of that foot.

But then again, I am a pawprint whore.

Very fitting position for the god of the entire fyorkin' underworld. I imagine him frequently hurting his feet on those pointy pyramids. Having tiny horses in the foreground as opposed to tiny camels seems a slight oddity, but that's nary a trifle.

very nice work, thank you for sharing.

Nice work, Rexar, and love the storm clouds. I actually think the resized picture works better, because it's almost too crisp in detail in the original resolution, especially with the wee folk, they're almost like Blue pixel art. It's also interesting that, although you evolved along two different paths, I could swear the stomping foot was a Ye Olde Ken Cougar's Macrobabies(tm) production, and yet I know from the evolution of your stomping feet that it is, of course, your own. The similarity is only in the foot, too...I think it's the first time I've noticed two arr-teests converge like that, it's almost creepy.

Excellent picture as usual! Again, I enjoy the impressive details, excepted perhaps for the little bugs on the sand... There's one little bad thing: sand smoke is missing between the third and fourth toes. That would have been much better in my humble opinion.

Oh, and Mike is at the far right of the picture.

Good heavens! That's a hugely impressive picture of an equally impressive size!

You did a great job with the weighty foot compression especially - fantastic stuff, RRR.

this is an amazing picture! the size,scale and the massive meaty toes

absolutely brilliant!

man i wish i was down there. good work as always!

this reminds me of the scene in the mummy returns where he stomps on a guy AND i had a simular macro fantasy afterwards too! it just goes to show no matter what your into, there is always someone like yourself with the same thoughts and feelings

OH MY...what small ears you have! :O

But still smexy!

Lol - who'd have thought you could describe a rampaging giant jackal god of the underworld to be "almost mundane"...!



Thanks, Aeon.





Heh - well it's not done for modesty or anything, I assure you. Genuinely, I do find art a real struggle and the difficulties are often evident to my eyes when looking at the finished piece. But most people would just say I'm being picky. Having said that, I think it's best if you can be aware of your own faults rather than having to have everyone else tell you what you've done wrong.

Anyway, thanks for the comments, and glad you could find everything! Care to elaborate on the positions of each one?





I had originally intended on doing a big print, but when I started adding the extra sand around the foot to create the sinking/impact effect, I felt it was actually spoiling it. I preferred being able to see the foot in its entirety. Okay, so it looks a bit strange having a huge foot not sinking into what is clearly soft sand, but at this scale, I'd like to think it isn't so noticeable as to spoil it.

As for the shading, I think too much can be made of shading black sometimes - I tend to just treat any such subject as being grey instead, then you don't feel limited by the tonal range you can use.

Thanks, Ahastar!







*eeks* - don't even mention the thought of treading on a pyramid! *winces*

Heh! Thanks Sprotchy - I take your point on having horses instead of camels, but I'm afraid I simply wasn't thinking about it that much!





Heh - well as an admirer of KC's art, I'll take it as a compliment! Admittedly, my ability to draw canine paws is still developing, and I do often find myself referring to how Ken draws them. But I hope it doesn't just look like a shameless copy or something!

Lol!

And to an extent, whilst I don't like losing detail, I do prefer to resize my images to remove any pixellated edges or impurities.

Thanks, Dino!





(He is indeed. )

I actually deliberately decided against putting a dust cloud between those two toes, because I wanted to be able to see between them. That's just me being a total toe-slut for you...

Heh!!




Oh my - what small text you have! Heh!

Thanks, ESC. I admit, the ears are a little short by jackal standards, but truthfully, I ran out of room on the A3 page!!! Lol!




Thanks to everyone who has commented! Much appreciated.

I would indeed care to elaborate! The dalmation is by Anubis's leftmost toe on his right foot, which is also pinning the fox. The jackal is to the right of the dalmation, and to the left of a fur on a black horse. Mike is on the far right, nearly about to run out of the picture's view. Keen rapta eyes!

*chuckles* - good work!


(Also, *pokes Dino* - I see you've changed LD5's administrative email address? You daft Speck!)

Heh!

Daft? Them's...well, that's not a fighting word, but it's at least...non-cordial! I demand recompense!



....ahhh, better. And yes, I have changed my E-mail address to speck from dino. Did someone actually want to E-mail me?