Hey I actually made a decent ref now finally!



I'll leave the original text of this page up because I think there's still more details that I didn't put in the pic and I'm too lazy to rewrite it right now lol

This is a reference sheet (page?) for Verloren. It's not a neat little single-picture thing like a normal ref because I can't seem to ever finish one of those for any OC of mine for whatever reason, so I put together this mess.

You'll probably see that there are a lot of very overly specific details, but this is just the things that I try to keep in mind when I draw him myself because I'm obsessed with Getting a Character's Shape Just Right (I don't usually succeed regardless). Often when drawing someone else's character, I keep wondering if that ear shape or the way the fur flows from their cheek are part of the character or just a thing of the artist's style, so I made this sheet in case anyone else ever wants to draw Verloren and also wonders about that kind of thing. This should help clear which things are deliberate design choices.

Now, if you do intend to draw him, obviously you don't have to pay attention to 100% of this. I suppose this is more for myself than anything else actually lol.

This pic is the original source of the current design, so I still refer to it as his main ref.

Verloren is a Vykrest Hound, which is a breed of canine I made up. He is kind of like a mix of sighthound and maned wolf, with extra large ears and an almost cat-like long tail.

FACE:
• His face structure is a lot like a maned wolf, but with the ears set far back on the head more like a greyhound, pointing backwards when relaxed.
• His snout is long and thin, with a pointy triangular nose and some fuzz on the chin.

EARS:
• His ears are very long, at least as long as his entire face, and have a curve to them. They are wide at the base and get quite narrow at the tips, which are almost pointy but slightly rounded.
• They have a pretty wide range of motion, bending backwards to a pretty low angle, while also being able to turn forwards like a normal dog's ears (though it's very rare for him to have his ears like that).

MANE:
• His “hair" is actually more of a mane, which can fluff up a bit when he's angry.
• The fur of his mane is smooth and straight, slightly wavy at times.
• It grows as a stripe that goes from his forehead to about between his shoulderblades. He keeps it long only until his neck, trimming all of it below that point.
• He always keeps it in a loose ponytail hanging straight down on his back (except when he was younger because he used to trim all of it a bit shorter.)

EYES:
• His eyes are dark purple, with a ring of lighter purple around the pupils.
• His pupils are slits, like the eyes of cats and foxes.

TAIL:
• His tail is very long and thin, with long flowy fur.
• The actual length of his tail has been variable so far in my arts lol, but I think the one on the outfit ref a bit below should be correct.

MARKINGS:
• The white underfur starts at the corner of his nose, crosses through the corners of his eyes and ends at the upper tip of the cheek fluff.
• The jaw marking follows the corner of his mouth, so it'll look longer if he's smiling (a rather rare occurrence lol.)
• He has a stripe of the darker color (not the mane color) running down his entire back and his tail.
• The entire tip of the tail is also the same darker color, but the underside of the tail is the lighter color.


Here's some notes about some of these details drawn over the pic:

I like to draw “pelt" refs because drawing ambiguously proportioned stretched feral shapes is easier than anthro. Kind of an unnecessary ref tho because he always wears long clothes anyway. Pretty much none of his body is ever visible beyond his head, hands and tail.

And here's his entire palette, which I could've added to the pic above but didn't:

He pretty much ALWAYS wears this exact same thing: a sleek mage suit with fitted sleeves, long at nearly heel length, closed down in the front until a little lower than his waist, with a collar that goes up until like the middle of his neck and ALWAYS features a decorative purple diamond-shaped gem. The suit is always either black or dark gray, with silver accents and some smaller purple details. Underneath, he'd be wearing a long shirt and heel-length pants, which are tucked inside his heel-length boots, all of which in the same color palette as the suit.

The details on the suit can vary, but are always somewhat simple, typically consisting of pointy shapes which often follow along the seams of the suit. Aside from the always-present diamond on the collar, sometimes there will be smaller diamonds in places such as the buttons. On some of his most “colorful" suits there may be larger patches of purple on the suit itself besides just attached diamonds.


STAFF

His personal custom arcaster (magic-using weapon) is a dual-staff with large purple diamonds for its main crystals, crescent shaped pieces at its crowns, and several other pointy edges. It's very symmetrical. Like every staff, it retracts to just the handle when not in use and can be put in a pocket or attached to a belt. (Something kinda like Star Wars lightsabers, or more specifically the blade staff on Heretic II because that's actually where I stole this concept from when I realized that my magicians needed something a bit more practical than carrying a huge stick around at all times.)