Wow. This takes me back. So, the story here is, I used to actually do a lot of anthropomorphic art. I blame growning up on Disney and Looney Toons and the like and the appeal in particular of Disney's treatment of Robin Hood and the myriad plucky animal sidekicks in the classic movies.

I stopped doing it for a collection of personal reasons that need not be addressed at this juncture. At this point, it's been about 8 years since(definitely that long since I last drew this character in such fashion). It's been at least a couple years since I last did art this particular way-- meaning pencil, a technical pen for inking, my Prismacolor markers and an inclination towards bold block colors-- I've migrated to pretty much full-digital of late.

and I had our 9-year anniversary today, and among other things, we spent some time retrospecting over a sheet of drawing paper. Among other topics came a musing that she missed some of my older work, particularly of Azrael here. This led to an extremely messy Sharpie-sketch on her part and one on mine that came out looking surprisingly good. I got curious, so I snagged a pencil and laid down some more careful lines, and before I knew it, I had inks down, was starting in on color, and the end result is the above.

What strikes me about it, personally, is that it's like I never stopped drawing like this. I gravitated back into the style without any trouble and the finished sketch is probably actually slightly better than when I was drawing this character regularly.

Like hopping on a bike. Who'd have guessed.

Anyway, I've passed through my phase where I was resisting doing anthro art. I don't plan to exactly go back to doing it all the time, but don't be surprised if a few turn up over the course of things. It's kind of nice to spend some time with comfortable old habits.

On a side note, I forgot how much I love the Prismas. The markers yeild this really smooth, kind of silky-looking texture on the page after they dry, and it's terrifically appealing and I think I'm going to make it a point to pull them out more. It's just too bad that quality of texture isn't capable of being scanned. But at least the colors remain vibrant and appealing.