Mediavallia

Mediavallia: a cat-lady I picked at here and there over a period of 2 months. I did it for 2 reasons - 1. I never really draw more-human-type anthros, so for practice I gave it a shot, and 2. it was sort of a late entry to Ursula Vernon's Livejournal "Art-Challenge #1 - Clichés", and I picked out things I see a lot in Fantasy images of women - note the unnatural figure, the impossibly-tight, "how-does-it-stay-on" clothing, the jewelery everywhere, the Big Hair, and of course the ubiquitous companion gryphon-type creature (he was fun).

I also did darker outines and lighter shading than my usual, as I see that sort of shading a lot in fantasy art (that's much better than mine). She does have fur, but it's very short; it's hard to see in this scan (the pic is actually shrunken down a good deal from 11" x 14"). I think of her spots as almost freckle-like, but I guess they could be a sort of tattoo.

Inspired in part by an Art-Deco statue of a lady holding a peacock in her right hand, and by the ladies in lingerie and swimsuit catalogs, though I used a mirror for details. I tried to stay truer to my references than usual, to "force" myself to learn. 11" x 14", pencil on Bristol.

She's derived from an old mermaid character of mine (Mrii'kirii), and looks less angry in the close-up (see next image).