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Description
I have been having a hard time.

(TLDR; Please let me know what you think of this reference, if it can be improved upon. He's supposed to be angelic, his eyes are supposed to be striking, and when he smiles, he's supposed to look kind, and serene.

Also, a cropped version with just the references can be found here:

www.deviantart.com/eukayoticpr…
).

If you have been paying attention to my journal, you'll know that I have been trying to establish definitive references for Aether, my character. For reference, here is the best picture I have of him.

www.deviantart.com/eukayoticpr…

As you can see, he's really cartoonish, here, which is not desirable. In fact, if you look at one of the first pictures I made of him interacting with another character, you'll see that he's supposed to be pretty realistic looking:

www.deviantart.com/eukayoticpr…

The issue, here, is that I am just not consistent with drawing him.

On that, note, this character is so #*!#!*&@!! difficult to draw! There are a lot of reasons for this.

First, he's pretty visually complex. Not only do I have to worry about his fur, his wings, and how his robe is positioned, but I have to figure out how that symbol gets distorted (and, by the way, initially, his robe was supposed to be embroidered with a repeating pattern. Haha. Yeah...)

Second, I am not as good at drawing realistic foxes, or dragonfly wings as I should be.

Third, Aether's features make him prone to looking cartoonish. He's supposed to have large, visually arresting, eyes that make him more...well..ethereal. But the scale of his eyes, in conjunction with the fact that he can smile (unlike real foxes), tends to make him look like a stereotypical fursona, which is not desirable for this character. At. All.

Fourth, I am having difficulty distilling his face into a reliably collection of simple shapes. At the bottom right corner, you can see that I attempted to do this. Here, you can see that his head is modeled after a pretty fat triangle. Moreover, his snout is a lot shorter relative to his head than I always expect. In fact, as a rule of thumb, I have come to realize that, however short I think his snout should be, it's always shorter.

I am not sure why I have such trouble with this.

Anyway, I am pretty satisfied with front and side references, here, even if the wings aren't quite the same shape.

You can also see I added a fur texture on the front, but then said f*** it on the side reference.

Again, please let me know your opinion, if you have any. Thanks.

Description
I have been having a hard time.

(TLDR; Please let me know what you think of this reference, if it can be improved upon. He's supposed to be angelic, his eyes are supposed to be striking, and when he smiles, he's supposed to look kind, and serene.

Also, a cropped version with just the references can be found here:

www.deviantart.com/eukayoticpr…
).

If you have been paying attention to my journal, you'll know that I have been trying to establish definitive references for Aether, my character. For reference, here is the best picture I have of him.

www.deviantart.com/eukayoticpr…

As you can see, he's really cartoonish, here, which is not desirable. In fact, if you look at one of the first pictures I made of him interacting with another character, you'll see that he's supposed to be pretty realistic looking:

www.deviantart.com/eukayoticpr…

The issue, here, is that I am just not consistent with drawing him.

On that, note, this character is so #*!#!*&@!! difficult to draw! There are a lot of reasons for this.

First, he's pretty visually complex. Not only do I have to worry about his fur, his wings, and how his robe is positioned, but I have to figure out how that symbol gets distorted (and, by the way, initially, his robe was supposed to be embroidered with a repeating pattern. Haha. Yeah...)

Second, I am not as good at drawing realistic foxes, or dragonfly wings as I should be.

Third, Aether's features make him prone to looking cartoonish. He's supposed to have large, visually arresting, eyes that make him more...well..ethereal. But the scale of his eyes, in conjunction with the fact that he can smile (unlike real foxes), tends to make him look like a stereotypical fursona, which is not desirable for this character. At. All.

Fourth, I am having difficulty distilling his face into a reliably collection of simple shapes. At the bottom right corner, you can see that I attempted to do this. Here, you can see that his head is modeled after a pretty fat triangle. Moreover, his snout is a lot shorter relative to his head than I always expect. In fact, as a rule of thumb, I have come to realize that, however short I think his snout should be, it's always shorter.

I am not sure why I have such trouble with this.

Anyway, I am pretty satisfied with front and side references, here, even if the wings aren't quite the same shape.

You can also see I added a fur texture on the front, but then said f*** it on the side reference.

Again, please let me know your opinion, if you have any. Thanks.