Avian Pilot

Okay KFelidae, you're going on my favorites list because this is the second time inspiration has hit me based on one of your critters. Specifically because I based this guy off of Har Krow.

I won't claim that this is Har since he's not a strict corvid, but he is still one of the avian race.

As to his design, I spent about an hour aforehand thinking about shape and physiology matters during the ride home after a trip to see relatives. In the process, I made a number of creative decisions, such as:
- Yes, the avians have wings, even though they're neither large nor strong enough to fly with (like KFelidae's avians). Even though their scientists have yet to determine why their kind even has wings to begin with, the wings are a long-steeped point of social pride, and all of their formal dress is designed to show them off for others to see.
- The avians' entire bodies are covered in a soft lining of down feathers. Like the wings though, their down is too thin and light to provide much insulation or covering, so they are a clothed race. Interestingly, their feathers tend to "tan" over long-term exposure to sun, resulting in more vivid colors along their wrists, wings, head and chest than their torso and legs.
- As their wings connect at the shoulders, their wings and arms share some of the same neural structuring -- it's not unusual to see an avian gesturing with one arm and coresponding wing simultaneously.

There's more, but I'll save that for another day. This drawing was fun for several reasons, one being the amount of thought I put into it beforehand, another being that this is the first clothed creature I've drawn in a long while. So I kinda went wild patterning his uniform after real (admittedly human) clothing. Mixing and blending the colors is always fun (it took four colors to produce the dark shade of his jeans), and I made sure to decorate his badge with various medals and honors. (I'm glad the JPEG compression didn't ruin that little effect)

Medium: Colored, ebony, 0.7mm pencil
Time: About five hours
Size: 9x12", 75px/in at full-view