Kestrel King Painting WIP 1 (Patreon)

Owowowowo, a sight few and far between! I've never posted one of my full painting underlays before, until now just for y'all here on Patreon! My public social media sites are only going to see a snippet of this! '3'

This is how I start all my Lineless Paintings! It's a completely greyscale underlay so I can see values and shading without color distorting the contrast. For this one, I really wanted to focus on giving Sniper a lot of 'body' and render the muscles and fur in a much more realistic way. I paid crazy attention to how the muscles would look under the skin and fat layer, and how the fur on top reacts to the bunching and contractions.

Also, little known fact, Sniper is part American Kestrel...AND part Lipizanner horse! That's the horse breed he is most closely based on, and I really wanted to show those aspects of him since I most often show his avian aspects much more! He's just a floofy musclebob-buffpants pony bird. <3