Ankh Lounging

Probably my best picture to date, here's Ankh, one of my Sanitize and Eli characters. As you can see by the numerous other books lying untouched around him, he's ignoring his work and reading a comic. Manga to be exact.

If there were going to be words that would describe our 18-19 year-old Ankh, they would be words like arrogant, persistent, irritable, and self-important. He's perfectly aware of (and has been for some time) of his father, Osiris's, way of living, and given the simmering resentment he cultured for his father over the years, nothing his father says goes with him without a chance of being completely ignored. More so than your average child. While Ankh's not a bad person, he does have some terrible traits. Laziness tends to be one, although sometimes, he's more has a more of an avoidance attitude; he ignores his work while doing something just as, similarly, or even more time-consuming that he wants to do. Bottom line: if he doesn't want to do it, he might just not do it. What makes it worse for his father is that little thing with Ankh now being a legal adult...

Like I said, Ankh has some terrible traits, and another one happens to be my favorite. Going behind authorities' back and doing exactly what they told him not to. He's done that with his father many times, despite attempts to discipline him (oh, stop worrying, his father's humane; it's not like he beats him or anything...) There've been time when Osiris tells him not to do something. If it pleases him, Ankh waits for the perfect opportunity to do it and then does it and then lies about it. Which now that I think about it isn't very smart of him 'cause Osiris is normally too smart to believe his lies. On an interesting note, this is very similar to what my character Sheldon Lamar does, except Sheldon's version is based more on curiosity and has a far more innocent streak than Ankh's. Also, Sheldon and Ankh don't get along. Ankh sees Sheldon as a raving, hideous lunatic. Sheldon sees Ankh as stuck-up and self-important. Another thing they share in common is their tendency for morbidity.

Now the topic of his adoption is something he was always very sensitive to. But as he got older, the topic went from being just a hard one to bring up to being nearly impossible to elude to without irritating him. He was present when his parents died and has had problems with that ever since. When he was young, he began having nightmares on an almost consistent basis. In time, naturally, Osiris told him he was adopted, and eventually, from there, Ankh had such a fear of loss when he was still young that he would panic when he was left alone for extended periods of time. He learned to cope with this as he aged, but he still deals with the fear of losing friends and what little family he has. Which carries us over to our next point.

Ankh has some nastiness to him, okay, yes, but he's a far cry from being thoroughly evil. Whle he does project himself as being aloof, he is very capable of making friends and keeping friendships. Bravery and loyalty (mostly to whatever friends he has) define a number of aspects of his character. Not to mention those two virtues tie into another of his good traits: cooperation. Yes, despite his antagonistic, sometimes downright insulting persona, Ankh is quite good at working with others when the situation calls for it. There have been instances in which Ankh is clearly excited to tell his co-workers about ways his abilities can play off of theirs.

For someone whose forte is not creativity, he can be very imaginative. He always had an active imagination, and Osiris fed it gladly, making the Ankh of today an intelligent and wise innovator. Speaking of intelligence and wisdom, those two attributes of Ankh are strong. Having been taught by a super genius and having a good head on his shoulders anyway, Ankh never really showed any trouble with problem-solving. This is where he has Sheldon beat. He also scores high on his actual niche: planning and positioning. Ankh has shown how easily setting up situations is for him and how to use what he get for what he needs.

If we just step back towards the subject creativity, Ankh can be a pretty surprising person when it comes to style. You'd think an arrogant person's clothing would reflect their demeanor, but Ankh prefers relatively plain clothes. His favorite color, orange, is also in high contrast to his personality. Sometimes, when Ankh wears different shades of orange, he always calls them orange while ever-specific Osiris always calls them by their actual shade. Sunset, pumpkin, red-orange, burnt orange, etc., and Ankh points out how fashion designer-ish and sometimes effeminate it makes them look. Another more noticeable trait of Ankh's is his application of eyeliner. It's never really specified whether or not he's doing that to resemble his father, to be rebellious somehow, or just 'cause he wants to. However, it's probably not to look like his father. Osiris has black lines trailing down alongside his nose. Ankh didn't mimic that look at all.

But his best trait of all, as corny as this sounds, is his honest love for his father. Yes, he's a total jerk to him usually, yes, he openly acts rudely in ways that disrespect and humiliate him, but when his father is in trouble or missing without a reason, all that falls away, and a person can see that Ankh does honestly care about his father. Sometimes, very rarely but sometimes, his affection for his father can be seen in little snippets, especially when Ankh needs comfort.

I hope you guys found that interesting enough. Stay tuned for more stuff.

This picture is also on deviantART.
Ankh Lounging
GenreChowderStudios' deviantART homepage

Later.

GCSketch

Sometime during the beginning of April, I'll be setting up a second deviantART account: GCSketch. It'll be a place where I upload practice sketches and traditional pics. I don't wanna put them in my main gallery because GenreChowderStudios is for my professional works, and my traditional works are a little less than professional. Besides, I want it to be easier to see my sketching progress.

I'll still be active on my main account, and any sketches uploaded to GenreChowderStudios will remain there, but I won't be uploading traditional art, sketches, or linearts to my GenreChowderStudios account unless they're much better quality than the stuff I normally submit. With GCSketch, I'll try to upload a few pictures every week. If I get busy or something, naturally that'll disrupt my process. But hopefully, I can have a steady improvement that might even be seen in my other art.

First, I need time to finish up the other things that I'm doing. Or get further along with them as the case may be. That's why I'm opening my new account later rather than sooner. No time. But hopefully, with GCSketch, I can seize learning opportunities that I haven't reached yet. I hope this thing pays off. Wish me luck.

Later.

Exclusive Picture - At the Window

Here is a 9 year-old Sheldon in his painfully messy room, hanging out the window, looking miserable again. If you're wondering where his bed is, he's kneeling on it. And the inside light source is coming from that a bedside light he has.

At this time in Sheldon's life, he was supposed to be on medication for his psychosis, but he thinks it's poison, so he'll have nothing to do with meds of any kind.

You'll notice that in the background, there are what appear to be pictures of flowers on the wall and on his closet doors. There are flowers, so yay for you being right. Sheldon has a thing for daisies in particular because of this obsession he has with his little sister, Daisy, and he draws them obsessively. On a related note, when he's not drawing with a pencil, he's drawing with his favorite green marker, which is on his bed next to him, out of sight from this angle; when he talks about his marker, he heavily exaggerates its worth by using positive adjectives. E.g. "My wonderful, beautiful, amazing, extraordinary green marker." His mother is always telling him to stop drawing on the walls, but clearly, he hasn't listened yet.

This pic was a murder to color; the details were tedious to finish and there are a number of effects I had to spend time on in a single layer. But I'd be lying if I said Adobe Photoshop Elements was a waste of my time. And on a triumphant note, I finally figured out how to use a one-way perspective vanishing point! I personally think the picture is so much better for it. Plus, I used to not be able to pose characters that convincingly in positions like that. Now I am, and I'm happy I can improve.

By the way, you probably can't see it without getting that close, but he also wrote Daisy's name on the wall a number of times.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading a little bit about Sheldon Lamar.

This picture is not on deviantART, 'cause it's an exclusive picture on my blog for my blog only. However, here's my homepage anyway. If you look hard enough (calm down, it's not that hard), you can actually find more stuff on Sheldon and other Sanitize Trilogy characters there.

GenreChowderStudios' deviantART homepage

Later.