Late Night Studies - Tiger Cubs (Patreon)

Hybrid blog post and art post.  I've been wanting to change up my style recently - you may have seen me working on a new style of inks, which is coming along nicely I think.  Another big thing I want to change is to reduce the tooniness of the faces I draw - I've caught myself drawing anime-sized eyes a few times recently and it's really bothering me.  I like drawing anthropomorphized faces with animated, humanlike expressions, but I really want to get a bit of realism back into my style.  So I decided I'm going to set about doing some studies of popular animal species - wolves, lions, foxes, hyenas, otters, etc etc etc.  I couldn't sleep tonight so I figured I'd get started on it, and chose to begin with tiger cubs as Farore is supposed to have a cublike face.  I want to get it looking more tigery and less like a cartoonish housecat.  It doesn't have to be 100% accurate to a real tiger - after all, it's a robot, and is specifically designed to be extra cute.  I'll probably keep its eyes on the huge side and its muzzle on the small side, but I really want to put some of what I learned on these sketches to use.  Possibly I'll do some practice sketches of Farore tomorrow to try to push it a bit.  In a few days, probably around when I post the monthly art packs, I'll do a blog about my holidays and how they've gone (pretty well).  For now, time to stare into the internet until I'm exhausted enough to pass out.  Enjoy the art!