In Service to the Kingfisher

Hello! Call me Shrike! I'm a night person who loves owls. And knights. And puns. I put my art here! Likes are great! Likes plus reblogs are even better! If you write incoherent nonsense in the tags, you own my heart forever. This blog is mostly SFW/PG by incident, I will not guarantee it. My work may include harsh language, dark or mature themes, artistic nudity, suggestive content, etc. I'm an adult and create for adults. I do my best to tag appropriately, but you are responsible for curating your own internet experience. Please do not reupload my work to other sites without explicit permission.

[knightowl-studios]

[2026/07/23]

Highland cow studies. I realized recently that I've...never drawn a cow before, somehow?? Maybe once or twice? Which is crazy, they're so cute. Anyways, something I noticed with these that it feels like it's easier to make progress on a subject you have no familiarity with than one you do. You're not having to break any bad habits or identify & put aside any preconceived ideas of what the subject looks like. I felt like I started to get a decent grasp of cow shapes fairly quickly, whereas with studying felines (something I drew a lot as a kid) I feel like it's much harder and I'm fighting my subconscious the whole time.

Photo refs below cut:

Olha

PHOTOLIFESTYLE

JamesCurrie

kris

supakit

william

Hanna

Karrie Ann

Marco Warm

Steven Whitcher

[verieas]

Sorry if you've gotten this question before, I'm new, but what's your process for those traditional drawings? Whenever I try to scan and color something I drew on paper it always looks really...dirty.

sorry for the wait, i wanted to answer this on desktop!! i’m not very good at explaining things but for you… i will try my best!

for starters: when i draw traditionally, i use my phone to take pics instead of scanning them! i feel like when you scan a drawing, it generally comes out more “dirty” then when you use a phone. after i take it, i play around with the light, color, and b&w sliders. i have an iphone but i’m pretty sure you can do this with most phones?

i usually move the sliders for light and color all the way to the right, and move the b&w slider to the left but not ALL the way to the left. depending on the lighting of your original picture (but i’m PRETTY sure you can get this effect with any lighting), you should be left with something like this:

i’m sure you notice, but the erased marks towards the bottom of the image are pretty visible. it doesn’t really matter to me because i chose to crop the picture but in the case where you DON’T want to crop out anything: use light pressure when drawing traditionally!! it doesn’t matter how light the lineart is because you’ll be fixing it in photoshop (or any art program) anyways.

this is when i open the image in photoshop. i set it to a multiply layer and then duplicate it. this brings out the texture and makes the lineart darker. having the original and duplicate layer set as multiply layers allows you to color underneath it (in a new layer of course.) but keep in mind that any color you put under both layers will turn out darker then it actually is. you can also do this with any art program… it just might have different names instead of multply.

of course you can slap some colors on and call it finished but i take the eraser tool and erase EVERYTHING around the drawing (and some negative spaces in the drawing.) THIS is what makes it look “clean”, especially if there are erased marks outside of the drawing that are still visible, or when there’s a cat hair that you didn’t notice until after you took the picture.

then you add colors and play around with an overlay and all that stuff… and you somehow end up with something you’re happy with posting. it’s not purely traditional. my work is a mix of both traditional and digital. i’m not sure how this method would work for traditionally drawn comics or for traditional drawings where a background is drawn but hopefully this helps you!! 

[knightowl-studios]

Some more of my attacks and revenges from this year. So many amazing designs to draw, so little time 😭

Character credits (in order) :

Neyka - Pumkin_Popsicle

Hualspyd - Amazie-star

Morpheus and Fatigue - FrostedCanid

Rockwith Aleaf (the one and only!) - koenkosals

Sinosauropterebus - thunderglade

[drawingden]

Colour Painting Tips by slawekfedorczuk

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[knightowl-studios]

Speedy lil Zephyrrius ref for Artfight since I've been noodling around with her design so much the past few months.

One of nine once-celestial siblings, Zephyrrius (zeh-FEAR-ee-uhs) is a godlike spirit known as a Deike'tha (DAY-kih-thuh) who guards the land alongside her brethren. Personifying the element of wind and closely associated with the concept of independence, she is an insatiable wanderer with by far the broadest range of any Deike'tha.  Unlike her siblings, Zephyrrius calls no one place her home.

Zephyrrius is a proud individual, with an aura of stateliness and refinement about her that hits you as soon as you meet her.  She has a strong sense of aesthetics and is prone to vanity, but also excels at spotting and coaxing out the beauty in all kinds of people and things.  Her strong sense of pride can be for ill but also good; especially when compared to the other Deike'tha she can come across as aloof or self-interested, but she'll also never betray her principles, and when the chips are down will always choose the high road...though, never fear, she may still complain about it along the way.

Despite what her vibe can suggest, she tends to be very curious and invested in learning about and experiencing new things.  This pairs well with her irrepressible urge to roam.

Unique among the Deike'tha, Zephyrrius has no "twin".  Folklore and common interpretation often consider this a manifestation of her concept.

Points that still need illustrating (the list never ends, help) :

Strong aerokinesis (naturally); can technically manipulate it with any part of her body, but finds it easiest and most effective with her tail and wings.

Tail can trail freely like a kite's and/or be controlled for better maneuvering.

Doesn't technically need her wings to fly (but finds it much easier with them), and much of her flight is powered by her own air currents.  Her wings are thus built more for riding those currents, like an albatross, than the more active flight of most other birds.

Can use aerokinesis to allow her to hover and often will (touching the ground is gross!!).  Think Aang's airball, just less playful.

Will sometimes attach long trailing baubles like ribbons, chimes, and bells to her body, wings, etc.

[knightowl-studios]

30/45-min gesture sketches before bed. Referenced from this footage via the Houston Zoo.

[knightowl-studios]

Skaði of the Wilderness

Artfight attack for DreamDragonCreations! This design caught my attention right away, and when I saw her voiceclaim was Freya from GoW I HAD to draw her ^^

I couldn't decide whether to draw her with her mask or without, then thought, why not both...?

[knightowl-studios]

In other news my favorite art marker gave up the ghost this last week 😔 very sad times.

[knightowl-studios]

Artfight card! En garde! 🤺🖌️

It's my second year doing it and this time I'm a little more prepared XD Lio is still missing a proper reference but hopefully I'll be able to bang something out before it's too late! In the meantime she has some screenshot turnarounds and a dog!Lio one can use :]

[knightowl-studios]

Kasai gets yet another facelift (and some fancy-schmancy presentation!).

His design was one of the ones I got to show a professional creature designer back at Lightbox, and the main bit of advice he gave me was to rework the ram horns. As we talked more though I began to feel like removing them altogether was the best call. I'd been real attached to Kasai having horns of some kind for years so it was a tough choice, but honestly there were always issues trying to get them to work, and having sat with it a bit this feels just fine if not much better :] Plus, I realized after the fact that his cheek stripes actually look a lot like ram horns on their own? So hooray for happy accidents! :D

[knightowl-studios]

Losarus, incarnate form of the ocean and justice, and big damp snek

Also, the subject of this post from March XD He's finally revealed!! //jazz hands

[knightowl-studios]

Lyna reminisces.

I had a lot of fun being part of the NPC Mini Bang event over at xivnpcbang.bsky.social the past few months, during which I got to draw this huge mural/comic of one of my favorite FFXIV characters, based on a story by @quillofevernight ! <3

Big thanks and kudos to the mods running the event and everyone who participated, this was a lot of fun (and now that I'm done, it's time to go catch up on all the art and fics 👀✨)

[knightowl-studios]

[October 2025]

Sketchbook pages and some marker testing.

[knightowl-studios]

2026/04/04

Coffee shop honses (photo credits - as best as I can find them, many of these are sourced to a huge variety of places - below readmore)

Armin Abdehou

Callipso88

Rick Bowmer

Nemyrivskyi Viacheslav

[knightowl-studios]

I'm working on a redesign of one of my old OCs (a sea serpent) and accidentally came up with two different ways of handling the limbs that I really like, both of which fundamentally change their use AND aren't compatible with each other DX shiiiit

[knightowl-studios]

screaming

[knightowl-studios]

I'm working on a redesign of one of my old OCs (a sea serpent) and accidentally came up with two different ways of handling the limbs that I really like, both of which fundamentally change their use AND aren't compatible with each other DX shiiiit

[knightowl-studios]

2026/02/26

30 min crosshatch-y sketch to wind down (with a bit of paintbrush cheating, shhh hahaha). Something about F Snapper faces always has kindly grandmother energy to me.