Leading the Charge

"I don't care how you do it, just DESTROY them!"

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Finally finished! This is the second place contest prize for ashpyne, from Anthro-Fantasy-club's icon contest. Here's his entry, if you'd like to see it:
ashpyne.deviantart.com/art/AFC…

This picture took me a lot longer to finish than I'd like to admit. Now, I got started on Ashpyne's prize shortly after I finished the third place prize (so it's not like I was leaving him hanging for a year), but it was with a different character and a different sketch. Unfortunately, I had to scrap that original idea and start anew with a new sketch a few weeks ago.

Why?
Well, because the original sketch just wasn't all that good. Every time I would open the .psd to work on it, I would change my mind and work on something else instead. Since this happened with Ikunoche's picture too, I gotta say: if something isn't working in the sketch stage, you're better to start out with a completely new sketch instead of wasting your time trying to "save" a weaker sketch. Sometimes a sketch can be saved, sure, but if you dread working on a particular picture, that might be your brain's way of telling you that it isn't very good, or that you can do better. On the plus side, I did manage to save the lighting and the color scheme from the original sketch, so it wasn't all a waste.  ^^

But I am super happy with how this turned out. I got to play around with perspective on a more active figure, and I got to play around with more extreme lighting conditions too. Plus I got to throw a bunch of inorganic things in there as well, which is always good (inorganic stuff makes more sense to me anyway). I honestly think this might be one of my strongest pieces to date.

Super huge thanks to both Shadow-Wolf and LarryWilson for their words of encouragement while I was working on this, and for helping me out with some lighting and composition goof ups. I seriously can't thank both of you enough!

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Artwork © 2014 by aboveClouds
Eloise (the cat) and Jinx (the robot) belong to ashpyne and his brother.
They're from this cool card game called Oddball Aeronauts, which was recently funded through Kickstarter and is now available for sale on Amazon! You might wanna check it out if you're a fan of ashpyne's designs.

Tree bark textures from ivangraphics and Neriah-stock were used in this picture.

Comments and constructive critiques are always welcome.

You are not allowed to sell this artwork, trace it, or claim it as your own.