#ventus au

[the-ancient-dragons]

RainWing studies!

Featuring Tarsier, a random character I made because I liked the purple/orange gradient, lol

Details, explanation, and more art below. Otherwise, next week are the SandWings. See you then!!

More Tribe Studies

Here's the original art I made for him. It was actually a request from a follower to make a character for their story. I don't know if I'd be able to find it, but their NightWing character was featured on the corner!

He likes the smell of orange peels and his favourite food is grapes. Don't take them from him...

His colours are actually based on one of the first pieces I made in Procreate. It's five years old now, and my art has grown a lot since then, but I still like it. After I finish these tribe studies I'll post it! Stay tuned >:)

I don't know what's up with my RainWings but I feel like I did a different face every time. I did have a lot of fun with the tails, though, and especially the dragonet's pose.

[solesurvivorjen]

Hello! I saw that you’re currently taking fanfic requests and I was wondering if you would be interested in writing a fanfic based on my AU where Ventus is a genie. If there's anything you want to know I’d be happy to share but I’d also love to see your take on this.

A/N My very first request! Thank you very much for entrusting me with this. It was a lot of fun to write.

The Final Wish

Without knowing how much time has passed, Ventus waits forever trapped in his lamp. It had been awhile since Dr. Xehanort last summoned him for his own personal use. Using him for his final two wishes to split himself apart as well as create an organization for his other half to run while Ansem went off to scour the worlds and plunge them into darkness. Since then Ventus is unsure of what had become of them and the rest of the worlds.

Ventus also wonders where his shadow went, remembering Vanitas’ visits from time to time. They weren’t much but those visits got him through the days when he needed it most, despite Vanitas’ mischievous attitude. He suspects that after Dr. Xehanort's disappearance he too vanished with the doctor and was sent to scour the worlds or join the organization. Maybe Vanitas lost his memories of Ventus just like how he is starting to lose his memories of the friends he made before getting captured. 

He faintly remembers a blue haired woman who would dote on him like an older sister would, and a tall brown haired man who acted like a big brother to him in his past, but couldn’t remember their names. That was before he was found in ancient ruins that reflected the Keyblade War from long ago. 

Remembering Ephemer, Skuld, Brain, and Lauriam, and how they wanted to use their last wish to set him free, made him miss what he once had as a family. Over time their names start to fade but he tries his best to keep their memories close to his heart. He hopes that they lived wonderful fulfilling lives even if they couldn’t save him from his fate. Like the blue haired woman and brown haired man, he ends up losing their names to time as well. This causes him to fall into a deep depression, falling asleep in his lamp chamber dreaming of those who he once associated with. Remembering faces and their voices but never their names.

The passage of time stops for no one. Not even Ventus as he slumbers only waking for short periods of time, before falling back asleep again. The process repeats over and over again for centuries until one day he is found once again by a stranger.

Ventus wakes up hearing the familiar sounds of his lamp rubbing up against something. He is finally being summoned as he emerges from his lamp, Ventus is greeted by a boy with brown hair a similar style to Vanitas.  Ventus tilts his head wondering why this boy looks similar to the boy who used to visit him all those years ago. 

The boy holds out his hand to Ventus as he introduces himself.

“I’m Sora. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

 The Genie smiles, taking his hand, causing the boy to smile at his acceptance. Sora ends up introducing him to Donald and Goofy who have traveled far and wide to help Sora search for the legend of the Genie who could grant seven wishes. They end up traveling to Destiny Islands to take a break from their long search for Ventus. Sora also introduces him to his other friends, Riku and Kairi. Using this time to train for the upcoming fights ahead and relax after mock fighting. During their time at the islands Sora promises Ventus that he will use his last wish to set him free so he will never be trapped in the lamp for centuries ever again. Ventus is happy that this boy is so determined to free him after their mission to destroy Xehanort and the organization, however due to his past he has his doubts that it will happen.

As they set out on their journey they encounter many worlds with heartless and nobodies alike, scouring the areas of the worlds. Sora didn’t want to use any wishes unless he absolutely had to, knowing that he is limited to seven. When his friends were picked off one by one by the organization members Sora was down to three wishes and he uses one of the wishes to resurrect his friends.

During the final battle Kairi was stabbed by Xehenort’s blade; this time he is down to one wish, unable to help resurrect Kairi’s heart. Ventus tries to convince Sora to use his last wish to save Kairi but instead Sora uses his last wish to free Ventus as promised. 

“Ven, I wish for your freedom.”

Ventus hears these words and he looks at Sora in surprise as he feels himself transformed before his friends. Gaining his legs and being separated from his lamp. The only solace he had always known when no one would need him until he was found.

“Sora, what about Kairi?”

“We’ll find her. Let’s finish this together,” Sora says holding out his hand for Ventus.

With that Ventus takes Sora’s hand as they face the opening portal that leads to where Xehanort resides. The final battle for Kingdom Hearts takes place and the search for Kairi’s lost heart is just beginning. 

[the-ancient-dragons]

SkyWing studies!

Featuring Primrose, an (important!) side character from The Blue Comet

Details, explanation, and more art below. Otherwise, next week are the RainWings. See you then!!

More Tribe Studies

The size of the wings was both fun and challenging. The SkyWing dragonet is the only one depicted flying because its the only tribe that knows how to fly right out of the egg (at least that's what I remember). I might try to fully render that landing pose in the bottom left because holy crap is it such a fun pose.

I also wanted to get into every scale on their neck/body. I find scales a very fun and soothing task; figuring out their orientation based on body twist and perspective is almost meditative.

Colour-wise, for Primrose, I might need to do a bust to show off her beauty because it feels slightly lost here. I wanted her to be relatively simple for her main colours and her interesting part to be the pink outline on her scales.

[the-ancient-dragons]

SeaWing Study!

Featuring Porpoise, a character for a future project!

Details, explanation, and more art below. Otherwise, next week are the NightWings. See you then!!

For SeaWings I really like winding poses to show their tails off. I wanted it to go from multiple angles and orientations. I also made them longer, but I think it works. It only makes them more eel-like and would support their cruising swimming style (and my headcanon skimming swimming style, which I hope to draw one day!).

[the-ancient-dragons]

Back again with a new piece, "Destruction"!

Closeups and more rambles after this segment:

Thankfully this one didn't take as long as Brother did, though I really had to investigate the water. That was sort of the point since I wanted to torture myself by doing every kind of water effect I could imagine. I hope they look wet enough...

My next works won't be as fancy, but I'll try to post more often. See you soon!

A SwiftScale hunt like this is something I've only attempted once before, and very loosely. I never actually finished it how I wanted it, but now I have! I might try it again with other characters and other poses/parts of the hunt. What better way to show you the tribe than what they are built for? Diving for fish!

This cropping would actually be cool for a cover... And while it is a character I plan to use in an upcoming book, it's not the vibe I want. Or maybe it is.... We'll see how I feel in the future....

Speaking of the character, why this piece is called Destruction is because of the mutual damage the fish and dragon are doing to each other. Normally, a proper catch is supposed to be quick and clean, but the SwiftScale was sloppy and got his talon impaled (re: I drew the pose, realised it was at a bad angle, then fixed it the lazy way. As Bob Ross would say, a happy accident that made for a better representation of the character's mental state. Or... an unhappy accident?)

I also wanted this piece to have lots of interactions in the background. Let's go over some of them!

In the far left we have a dragon returning from the water empty-taloned. If you're wondering why part of it is blurry, that's a water drop on the 'camera' lens! I had fun figuring out how to get the effect with masking. I had even more fun adding tiny details on the tiny details, like water refraction on the wings and water dripping off the wings.

Like for this dragon, you can see water spraying off its wings as it flaps. And I tried to do the same with the main character, though this time with water running down his wings. It was harder than I thought it would be to find a good ref, but I eventually did.

There are about 3 main stages of a SwiftScale stoop and there are three visible ones in this piece, though it's not super obvious with all the chaos going on. This is the second stage before the dragon straightens and tucks its wings back for the dive. I might make a short animation later, though whether it's 2D or 3D we'll have to see..... ;)

[the-ancient-dragons]

Finally, the MudWing studies!

Featuring Bisque, from The Blue Comet (pre-injury). If you know what bisque means in pottery terms then you have an idea of what happens...

Details, explanation, and more art below. Otherwise, next week I have a fun random RainWing piece. See you then!!

More Tribe Studies

MudWings are so hard. I don't know what's up with them. Maybe they'll be the tribe I try to model in zBrush, though how I'll find the time when school is trying to kill me, who knows. Maybe I'll even try to retopologize and texture it, but I doubt it. I'd rather do something I can use on my portfolio, and then in the future when I have my own licence and a death wish I can try to tackle the wof tribes in 3D.

That or I can just do a bunch of box models and use it as a rough posing model..... hmmmm..........

[the-ancient-dragons]

SandWing study!

Featuring Gila, an OC of my friend @oh-dear-charlie.

(Yeah, that's right, I tagged you. Surprise). Gila will show up as a side character in one of my future works, tho how soon that day comes depends on my ability to edit my old fics, haha. So far I'm only 1/5 of the way through...

Details, explanation, and more art below. Otherwise, next week are the MudWings. See you then!!

More Tribe Studies

Another one where I had fun with the poses, though I really focused more on the scales. I wanted to finally crack those SandWing elbow scales and I think I got there (though an orthographic pose like the top right is hardly a good way to judge).

[the-ancient-dragons]

I died.... but I live!!!!

Same cannot be said for the characters in this piece, titled "Brother".

I went missing because of school, but now I'm back!!! Won't be weekly posts but it won't be nothing, haha.

Tumblr might have killed the quality of the art, so here's a closeup below:

This is a piece I've actually been trying to finish for over a year. I haven't attempted a full dragon and background like this in ages so I was under practiced not to mention unmotivated because of my struggles. I let it sit for half a year and thanks to a new brush pack decided to try my hand again. Literally only took me 8 hours max to fix. That's what a fresh perspective can do. Sometimes you gotta wait a bit for the right time to come - something I've seen with both my art and especially my writing.

Speaking of writing.... I will try to iron out the plot soon! If anyone from my wattpad days still thinks I exist XD