#spirekit

[r1verwater]

2 in 1 special

[koolaidcatley]

[jayietheriverwarrior]

Fun fact, today is my birthday! ^^ Still can’t believe I’m 27. o.o

After finally getting all those ref sheets done, I was in the mood to try out another illustration. With the recent release of Sky, without giving away too much in the way of spoilers, I'll just say that I loved Spireclaw and Fringewhisker's relationship in River and I continued to love it in Sky, so I decided to use this urge to illustrate as a way to give these two some art. So here are our newest forbidden lovebirds, Spireclaw of ShadowClan and Fringewhisker, formerly of SkyClan, now a ShadowClan warrior alongside her mate.

I decided to draw them having a quiet moment to themselves in ShadowClan territory not long after Fringewhisker won her place in the Clan, before Berryheart's rage against the pair really started rearing its head and put the two on their guard. It's a moment of relief and joy, so much dizzying joy, now that they can finally just be together without having to constantly look over their shoulder, always having one ear pricked, always ready to move away from each other at the slightest hint of an approaching patrol. All of that hiding is behind them now. For better or worse, their secret is out in the open, and they can face whatever comes next together.

I had a lot of fun with this one, and I'm actually really proud of the result.  I'm especially proud of Spireclaw, and of the background, which while not perfect, does look better than previous attempts.  I used this image as a reference for the background. I'm super proud of Spireclaw's shading, and especially of how the shading turned out on him. Fringwhisker I'm still a bit unhappy with, something about her face just doesn't look quite right (I was trying to show her looking up at Spireclaw with an adoring smile), but it looked way worse before, and I did a lot of tweaking and playing around with it, and while it's still not quite right, it looks a lot better after all the work I put into trying to fix it. I used this image as a reference for Spire and Fringe.

Overall, while Fringe's face is still bugging me a little, I'm still really happy with how this whole thing turned out.  The title for the piece is a reference to a line from Dark River, where Heatherpaw said that there would be no borders between her and Lionpaw in StarClan. Things obviously didn't work out between those two in the end, but I feel a lot better for Spire and Fringe's chances... I hope, anyway.

[cloudtail]

[jayfrost-designs]

I have two more bonus older-series ref sheets that I'll be posting tomorrow, but this is the last of the modern ref sheets I currently have done, and the last I'll be uploading tonight.  It's the last of the BerrySparrow kits, and the one named after Spiresight, it's Spireclaw!

You can find the reverse side of his design here.

Spireclaw has no physical description given other than his pattern, so I came up with my own for him. I originally made a brand-new lineart for him that was just as lithe and elegant but with short hair, but it ended up feeling like that lineart fit another black-and-white tom far better, so I ended up giving the lineart to that cat instead (you'll see who when I post his ref sheet tomorrow), and I reused Sparrowtail's lineart for Spireclaw. I made his fur a bit shorter on the neck and tail, as I felt that suited Spireclaw better.

For his pattern, Spireclaw is described as a black-and-white tom. I played around with his pattern a lot, first with him being mostly white, then mostly black, then a tuxedo more similar to his mother, until I settled on his appearance here. I'm really happy with the end result, I dunno why, it just really says "Spireclaw" to me. He has no canon eye color, so I gave him the same yellow eyes that some of his aunts have.

Overall, I'm really pleased with how he turned out.  

[idrawcats]

Genetically accurate: Needletail and siblings

Parents:

Berryheart: longhaired solid black with low white, carrying dilute recessive

Sparrowtail: shorthaired chocolate mackerel tabby, carrying recessive longhair and recessive dilute

Kits:

Needletail: shorthaired solid blue with low white

Sunbeam: shorthaired black mackerel tabby with low white, carrying longhair recessive

Hollowspring: shorthaired solid black, carrying longhair recessive and dilute recessive

Spireclaw: shorthaired solid black with low white, carrying dilute recessive

[cryptidsugarclan]

Spireclaw

[letyachan]

969.Spireclaw

Son of Berryheart and Sparrowtail

"You know I'd die to protect whatever Clan I belong to. And if I end up fighting for SkyClan rather than ShadowClan, you'll only have yourself to blame."