☽ ShenzaiBird Art ☾

☽ Artist of animals and edgy OCs ☾

[shenzaibird-art]

🐦Welcome to the World of Shenzai 🐦

Hi there! I'm Shenzai and I make arts and stuff! I mostly draw animal people and have a million OCs and stories in my head that I keep wanting to yell to the world about.

For most things about my stuff, you can visit my website:

🌐 World of Shenzai 🌐

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Currently, my main OC thing that I've been working on is this:

🩸 Setting: Houndsdagger / Story of Verloren 🩸

It's about this kinda (definitely?) evil mage dog-guy who researched very dangerous magics and kind of caused a war within a war.

The tag about this setting here on my tumblr is #stt.Houndsdagger, and for arts of Verloren specifically, I have #oc.Verloren.

It's kinda really edgy but I'm having so much fun with this haha ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

More info about other tags under the cut:

I have a page with all the tags [link] but here are the most important ones kinda:

#Shenzairealm - Tag for all my other OC stuff

#stt.Redsky - The other setting that was supposed to be my main one if I hadn't gotten carried away with Verloren. Story for this one is called The Necromage, about a kid doing necromagic and crimes.

#stt.Luthenfold/Underlands - Another setting, but one that I don't really do much with yet. Mainly about an illusiomancer scammer fox guy, an assassin kitty guy and a pyromaniac gecko guy.

#Shenzaisona - My fursona! Silly dog-thing.

That's it for now! Might expand later if needed.

[ last updated: 2024-04-15 ]

[shenzaibird-art]

Finella is a very skilled mage, a lot more powerful than most people would have expected from her. She's from a noble family who doesn't practice magic (they have servants to do service and maintenance magic for them) so she had a harder time developing her skills than most other Royal Archmages, but eventually she became good enough to stand out among them.

Finella was in her mid-teens when she decided that she really wanted to study magic. Her mother thought it was foolish for her to try and refused to let her get into magic school, so one day Finella snuck away from home to figure out how to afford school on her own. With that, her mother reluctantly agreed to pay it for her, because more shameful than her daughter being a magician (I'll explain this someday) would be for her daughter to be a magician and poor. So Finella was sent to a good school in Houndsdagger capital with a nice place to stay and a couple aides so she would at least keep her class. But the family tries to avoid the subject during social gatherings.

Her choice of arcaster (magic-wielding tool) is a combo of staff and wand. The staff is hollow, made of a weave of fine metal bands, and the wand has a wavy blade, making it look like a fancy dagger. They are connected by a ribbon made of magic that can stretch or shrink at will. It can also be split any point and reconnected as needed, allowing Finella to avoid being tangled in her own ribbon. Delicate looking and graceful, but sharp and powerful. She has mastered some interesting moves that make use of the ribbon.

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Another picture I started long ago that I had neglected to finish... mostly because I'm so lazy about all the details in her outfits.

[shenzaibird-art]

Hawthorn is probably the most normal of the archmages, and the one who causes the least problems among them, something he takes some pride on although he somewhat resents having been picked for the team of misfits and weirdos in the first place. He's honorable and strong in combat and magics, why isn't he on a more prestigious team? Sure, he's from Blackskarl, a city in the northern part of Houndsdagger's territory which has had troubled relations with the capital city for decades, yeah. And his family hates the king, and his mother insulted the royal family to their face... and yeah, he regards much of the court as idiots and his contempt is often slightly noticeable in the way he addresses them... but still, he's totally chill. The fact that he'll often challenge others on a magic duel over any disagreement means nothing.

You see, if he had been given a chance to work at a better team, he'd do a really good job for them, even if he was working under the people he hates... and also prove his superiority as well. He should have had it better, but he's not one to make a fuss over this, no. He gets to be the best of his team anyway.

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Decided to finish this one because really, it's been sitting at like 95% completed for YEARS... Just because the shading on his face kept looking bad.

[shenzaibird-art]

Boring website update stuff

I share because I love my site so very much but I know it's boring lol

I did some updates to my character profile template... which I then had to apply to 19 profiles (+17 unpublished incomplete profiles lol) and I HAVE GOT TO STOP DOING THAT because at this point I think the work I've done the most on my site is update the char profile template and edit everyone to fit over and over...

But at least now I removed all the redundant/overly specific stuff I hated and which made filling in new profiles super annoying! Which means now it should be easier for me to finish those unpublished profiles (which include the ones for the Houndsdagger folks that are fully designed but not filled in yet)

This section now looks so cute and tidy! (on characters that actually have info to put on this section... which is actually very few of them...)

[shenzaibird-art]

Hell yea ArtFight Last year I promised myself that this year I'd have Finella, Hawthorn and Mitzer in ArtFight... I expected to have made them at least a tiny bit relevant in the meantime but oh well. They're there now if anyone wanna draw guys I never really talk about.

[ profile link ]

[shenzaibird-art]

My partner and I moved out of where we lived and it was a very long, very painful process because I loved that apartment so much and the new place is... well, less than ideal. But it's for a good reason. I hope. It's been a couple weeks now and I'm no longer so miserable, but sometimes I still think "I can't wait to go back home" except home doesn't exist anymore.

[shenzaibird-art]

Cornered

That's the path you've chosen, is it not? No... it's the path being forced on me. Is it really a choice when the only alternative is to lose everything?

[shenzaibird-art]

I promised myself that I wasn't going to post anything from my current big project until it's all done... but maybe I can share this since it's just a ref art :D

This is the armor for the royal guards of Houndsdagger. The royal family has been of "terrier" type for a few generations, so the helmets were fashioned to resemble their chin and eyebrow fur. Not all guards who wear these armors are even canine at all, but they all end up looking like dogs to honor their king. The ear piece is separate so it can be swapped for different ear shapes if needed, and the snout piece might also have longer and shorter variants.

This ended up with a lot more detail than I intended... which means it'll unfortunately need to be simplified a lot in the illustrations I'll be putting them in because there's no way I'll be drawing those fancy swirls over and over on multiple small images lol

[shenzaibird-art]

I tried updating Shenzai's design a bit for my birthday! (which was on Feb 26th, I'm just very late with everything as usual lmao)

I'm not sure yet if I like the face markings or the extra feathers and wings, I'll probably need to draw a couple headshots to figure that out. And also... I kinda really wanted to change her colors a bit. It's so hard for me to find something that looks cool and looks "like Shenzai" but I made some attempts anyway! So here are some alt colors I really like:

I really feel like Shenzai needs some purple. It's become my theme color lately so it would make sense. But do these feel "like Shenzai"? I'm not sure. I'll have to draw them more to know I guess.

I could also... just have all these three be valid designs. I have a few concepts involving "three" which they would fit into nicely hmmm...

[oc-loving]

which oc is always covered in cuts and bruises? why?

[shenzaibird-art]

Kevyn has lots of scars and is always getting hurt. He's in the business of scamming black market darkmages so he has a lot of people after him who have no qualms about injuring/killing people. He's an illusiomancer so he can easily conjure illusions to get away, but he also happens to be very unlucky, so even when he could totally make things go right, they still go kinda wrong most of the time... He probably cut himself on something really dumb and is trying to make it look like it doesn't even hurt at all. (Friday 13 is always a good reason to draw Kevyn)

[chocodile]

Hyden and Verloren meet in the ruins of the abandoned outpost outside the castle city. Connected by tunnels to the dungeons and magic labs, it serves as a smuggling hub for those looking to move magical contraband discreetly…

It's rare for Hyden to venture so far from his manor, especially alone. But a chance to trade forbidden spellcraft with the famous necromage, Verloren, may be worth dirtying his fancy cape and silken bunny-slippers for. That skull definitely has a guy's soul trapped in it.

A little followup to the cool crossover piece ShenzaiBird drew of our two dark wizards here! This takes place in Shenzai's own Houndsdagger setting. I encourage you to check it out if you like morally dubious furry wizards. ;)

[shenzaibird-art]

Seir is very often a condescending little bastard to everyone, but he's kind of worse towards Mulligan specifically. He thinks that someone getting to his age without ever bothering to learn any kind of magic whatsoever – not even the most basic cleaning spell or healing potion – must mean they're either really stupid or an anti-magic freak. So a guy like that getting a magic-adjacent job? Absolutely unacceptable.

Though it may also be because he's slightly jealous that Skyler can sometimes get along with Mulligan pretty well. He hates her, of course, but she's somehow the only person he enjoys working with, so it's disappointing that she's willing to give any attention to people like this loser. Where are her standards?

---

Something quick I had to make because I'm suddenly feeling exactly like in 2015 again (picking up Seir's story after not thinking about it for ages and then immediately getting massively sidetracked with mr. normalguy Mulligan, the background character I have a hard time keeping in the background...)

And uhh... extended lore under the cut I guess...

A big part of why Seir is so judgmental of non-magicians is that he doesn't realize just how much difference each person's magic aptitude really makes. For someone such as himself, born of a mother that was highly skilled in magic and was always using magic around him since he was born, learning magic came naturally and almost effortlessly the moment she started teaching him. But for someone like Mulligan, with no magicians anywhere in his ancestry and never significantly exposed to magic at all until he got this job, learning even the bare minimum would take some serious dedication. The organs that control magic – the magis nodes – would be underdeveloped, the flow of magic energy would be dormant, almost null. Awakening one's power even under these circumstances would be possible if they had an undying passion and desire to learn and pushed it really hard, but Mulligan never really cared about magic, so it never even really crossed his mind to learn. He was far more interested in reptile biology and taxonomy... which, surprisingly, happened to be the reason why he ended up working at the Redsky College of Necromagic.

He was just passing in front of the college one day when he spotted a snake in the gardens. The gates were open, so he went in to check it out, and since he knew it was a typically easygoing captive bred species, he just picked it up. Maya saw him and tried to warn him not to pick up random snakes but he told her he had experience in handling those snakes (probably along with an infodump about them). She then told him that these snakes were suddenly all around the gardens and the forest in the back of the college, and she had been tasked with finding someone able to capture and relocate them. He said he could totally do that. So they ended up talking a bunch and he mentioned that he used to work at a research lab dissecting animals, but he was now unemployed. Maya then told him that the college currently had a few open spots that basically amounted to dissecting lots of animals. So after the snake relocation job, he did a test for them, and since he turned out to be pretty skilled with cutting up even small animals with tiny bones and organs, he managed to get the job despite having zero magic skill.

Years of working in a magic-heavy environment surrounded by spellcasting people definitely helps passively increase one's magic aptitude a little bit though, so there could be hope for him if he really wanted to try!

[shenzaibird-art]

It's tNniversary!

(Anniversary of my story The Necromage)

This story may be mostly abandoned for now but it's never forgotten. No, I haven't finished chapter 2 and I won't for a long time yet, but here's a little something about it. A tribute of sorts.

[ F R A G M E N T S ]

A little art-webpage with some images and graphics and things...

Check it out here: [ LINK ]

[shenzaibird-art]

Oh look at the date, it's January 29th... the "tNniversary". Last August I was testing a slightly different Seir design and so I decided to finish something about it for today. Also gave me an excuse to redraw his front facing bust (for the fourth time now... please, can I finally not instantly hate this one this time) The sketchy headshots are from last year, the rest is brand new heh I keep thinking that Seir is really boring and kinda sucks, but I realized that maybe he could improve... after all, he's just 18 when The Necromage happens. I have a lot planned for him after that story, so maybe he could be better once he's 25 or so. Maybe he could also look a little cooler in a way that I find actually fun to draw.

18 y.o. Seir was a little jerk who thought that he was better than everyone else and that he could do anything at all, even the most advanced darkmagic crafts ever invented (and that he could totally do them better than everyone else). 25 y.o. Seir however has come to learn he's not quite so amazing after a couple near death experiences and other general failures, as well as everyone else around him constantly reminding him that most of his greatest achievements were really more about luck than skill. He's still unpleasant and full of judgment but tends to keep to himself rather than being overtly rude to people all the time.

Anyway, this has been the once-a-year reminder that Seir exists lol (and that as of today, he has existed for 14 years...)

[shenzaibird-art]

The Moon's Soothing Gaze

"It feels like it's been forever since I was thrown here. My body grows weaker, the pain grows harder to bear. At times, I realize how pointless it is to keep trying to survive... But the moon's soothing gaze always seems to refill my strength. Under its healing glow, I feel the urge to keep fighting, to survive against all odds, to spite the wardens who bet on my demise. There may be a point where no matter how hard I try to keep going, my body will cease to function. But until I get there, I will fight, and I will endure." ---

My first drawing of 2026.

[shenzaibird-art]

Constructs of Blood

“Verloren was well known for the gruesome magic crafts he used in the battlefield, but one of his most unsettling works was his ever growing Blood Army. Created from the corpses of his victims, these wretched things were devoid of any life, like hollow puppets of flesh, blood and bone. With no organs to perform bodily functions, their tissues were kept partially alive by magis alone, sourced from their former souls which he had bound to their flesh upon their deaths.

“Under Verloren's control, they were menacingly swift, dashing through enemy lines on their feet and hands, and delivering often fatal bites to any unarmored necks. It was nearly impossible to get one of these to let go once they clenched their teeth on their target, as they felt no pain and were simply disposable tools to their master, who had little concern if they were to suffer damages. Such formidable killing machines must have taken immense power to keep running, and yet, Verloren was able to maintain dozens of them around him, managing their every move while simultaneously using several other spells. The extent of his abilities was truly absurd.

“And as his vicious creations marched into battle, they left a trail of blood everywhere they passed. A constant stream of blood was generated within their carcasses and it overflowed, leaking through several places in their bodies -- perhaps a consequence of how much magis coursed through them. So among the bloodshed of their victims they left behind their own unnatural, necromagical blood. People in the region all dreaded the sight of those red-stained paths, for they were a sinister sign that somewhere nearby, death had been lurking, and has already made its move."

---

My first drawing of 2025.

[shenzaibird-art]

I made an updated side headshot for Sellatrix too! The old one bothered me even more than Verloren's old headshot. Like the original, there's also alt versions for no-hood and the other hairstyle she wears sometimes

Little comparison:

Sellatrix exists since 2018 but until 2023 she was very vague and I only had a tiny and very generic sketch of her face that I never actually liked. She was already very important back then, but I knew basically nothing about her personality. I'm very glad this changed because I really like her now.