#grimmhound

[roguesidea]

owed art for @fullbl1tz of their oupy dogy >:3

[lumilasi]

Finally, after forever I have some sorta ref post for Diojas. I needed to do this given he and Azul are my "main" couple, and the most major story of my characters happens around them.

I wondered if I should draw his full body separately for this as well, but then felt like it fits to have his full body ref image be with his BF, since that's the case for Azul's reference too. (Which, I now have to update Azul's sorcerer outfit at least given the story changes in regards to his BG)

Diojas' bio below:

Name: Diojas Sterling

Nicknames: Dio (his family/friends), Boy, Brat (his dad, affectionately), Puppy, pooch, your highness (Azul, jokingly) Prince (his dad's pack members)

Age: 29

A Grimmhound/Lightcaster sorcerer hybrid whose opposing powers cause him to struggle with controlling both, especially the former.

Family: Mother Mellina (Lightcaster sorceress), Father Alexander (Grimmhound), teen sister Mia. His dad's Grimmhound/Lycan pack

Love interest: Chester Knight/Azul Samaros, a thought-to-be-shadowcaster sorcerer whose magic turns out to be something completely different eventually.

Closest friends: Iris Avara (An astral sorceress who is also Azul's childhood friend), Angus Belmont (Formerly his BF's rival), Roman Bosco (the BF of Azul's friend/honorary younger sister figure Ava, a fellow half-blood Grimm)

Rival: none

Powers:

Astral projection: A basic skill for all magic using beings essentially, just how good you are at it depends on your skill level; on one hand Diojas should be really good at it due to being a Lightcaster, but because of his Grimmhound essence he tends to struggle with it.

Light spells: Diojas can utilize sacred light magic for exorcism, healing, protection and offensive spells, but how well they work varies

Grimmhound power: Diojas can transform into a canine beast that is very fast, strong, and durable, not easily damaged by mortal weapons or even most magical ones. Because of his father being a Golden Hound, he also can summon special claws that can damage spirits and ghosts as well.

Keen intellect: Because of his struggles with his powers, Diojas is very good at finding workarounds and using tactical thinking in solving situations when he can't rely on his magic. He's also known to be able to learn and retain a lot of random information for later like his mother.

Weaknesses

He's very self-conscious due to his struggles with his powers & having been a rather lonely child, meaning he struggles to approach people on his own in a more emotional level, which is ironic considering he's actually very good with people once he does talk to them thanks to his emotional intelligence and empathetic nature.

Diojas can't control his magic fully, and needs a protective talisman to keep his beast side at bay. He has spirit claws like his dad, but can't summon them most of the time.

NOTABLE BG STORY FACTS:

Diojas has always struggled with his hound side, and as a child had it lash out often; this is the main reason why he and Mia have such a big age-gap, its because his parents ended up waiting until his magic became stabler before even entertaining the idea of having another child.

Azul/Chester entered his life when his parents decided they wanted someone to cover his back during missions as he was starting to take reckless risks to prove himself, and given he was an adult at this point they didn't want to be constantly present and make him feel like a toddler needing to be kept an eye on.

Diojas was a very grumpy kid due to his struggles, which is also why he didn't really have friends a whole lot until he began working together with Azul, who introduced him to new people that he ended up connecting well with/generally gained confidence to make friends.

Diojas ends up becoming sort of the negotiating neutral party between Angus and Azul during the first few months of their developing new relationship, where the two were still likely to be at each other's throats.

Other Fun facts:

Diojas is gay, he was instantly attracted to Azul and VERY unhappy about it.

Unlike his dad, Diojas doesn't have as strong of a canine instinct in human form, so he doesn't act out on them at random like Alexander does - unless he's drunk. If you see Diojas staring at a bird, not wanting to take a bath, or scenting his boyfriend then you know he's wasted.

Lot of people assume his empathetic nature was inherited from his mother, but it actually comes from both; Alexander just tends to hide his behind a gruffy facade due to his past trauma. (once you actually look at what he does rather than says though, it becomes obvious he's someone who cares about people a lot)

Diojas' hair is two-colored because typically, only manifested Golden Hounds can have blond hair, but Diojas also had blond hair genetics from his mother, allowing the 'golden mane' to manifest partially. If his mum had a different haircolor, Diojas' hair would be fully brown or even black.

Since he is a Grimmhound, he does tend to prefer red meat/game based foods, but doesn't sometimes eat it raw like Alexander, as again, Diojas' isn't as strongly of a Stinky Forest Man like his dad.

He's a bit closer with his mum, mainly because he really looks up to his dad and thinks he's kind of a disappointment for struggling with his beast side so much. (of course Alexander doesn't think so at all and keeps reminding him of that, but it is difficult for Diojas to internalize the message)

His first time was with Azul, given he never dated before either on top of growing up with no proper friends. (Azul had slept with Iris before but no one else so he wasn't that much more experienced despite the confidence he seems to ooze)

He tends to enjoy snatching Azul's colorful cardigans a lot, to the point he no longer even really thinks about it when he does so.

Roman becomes one of his good friends almost accidentally while he and Ava help him and Azul out in their quest, and Roman can relate with his struggles and fears of his own powers, BUT is also older so he has some life-experience to share with Diojas.

If Diojas would let his hair grow out fully, it would still be brown from the underside and blond on top; the brown color isn't just in his roots, but rather his hair genuinely has a split in pigmentation.

[krenbotvt]

O'grius appreciates a person with a crown, but he prefers knowing how they earned it in the first place. The second lovely character belongs to GildedAshes :]

[lumilasi]

Spooktober Day 7.5: Candle (part 2)

In the end, for today I decided to make Mihail version of the previous piece. This does mean Its a repeat prompt, but my brain couldn't come up with anything else rn, until I got this out of my system.

[lumilasi]

Spooktober day 1: Swing

"Oh him? He's mine. Don't worry, he won't bite."

Time for spooktober! This year I'm trying to primarily focus on this lady and the adjacent characters, though I'll probably do some other ones as well.

Now, I wasn't entirely sure how to pick the theme for each day; my friend sent me a bunch of prompt lists, but I didn't really like any of them fully? I think I might just look at all of them each day (that I have time to draw) and pick whatever prompt I find the most interesting between the three.

[lumilasi]

Spooktober day 12: Under the sheet

Making this I concluded a few things: 1. its SO useful to have some sort of setting reference, now that I made their apartment layout. 2. Speaking of the said layout, I FORGOT THE BEDSIDE LAMPS from it....

Anyway, Ava's good boi BF has some trauma, which means he occasionally has pretty bad nightmares, and tends to be extra cuddly after he wakes up.

I didn't know what to put on the shelf, so there's only photos of Ava's parents and a random crystal lamp for now. Also, next time I should just stop being lazy and put down a perspective grid; the shelves on the BG have a bit bizarre angles, but I'm too done with this piece to fix it lol

[lumilasi]

So I really liked the more dynamic pose I did for the Alexander piece (this one), and decided to make a separate piece with it, including making it full body. (the sketch phase of drawing out his full legs looked funny, wish I'd realized to screenshot it lol)

Since I did not plan it to have a specific BG in the og version however, I found it too hard to blend him into an actual scene, so I ended up taking more poster-like approach with the background.

[lumilasi]

Today I managed to finish two of my W.i.ps, the new main outfit for Hayden, and this. I was trying to decide between "accurate colors" and "Having fun with it" and ended up going with the latter. (His actual color palette for this form is a bit warmer/less green)

While I was drawing this, I kind of realized that "ah yeah, Alexander clearly has some Logan/Wolverine in his DNA lol" which makes sense; Logan is likely one of my several inspo sources/reasons for preferring certain type of dad characters.

Since this is the only nonhuman form he has that doesn't include the dog skull mask, I decided that his skintone bleaches out to reference the whole bone thing.

(His full ref here)