Hey look! It’s a bat! A fruit bat, more specifically. He’s also a fruit bat. Get it? BECAUSE HE’S GAY? Please laugh.

As evident in the pic, his name is Baxter Cole. This is actually the first fully-detailed piece I made on the iPad Pro, and despite feeling my way in the dark with an entirely new medium and application, I think I did pretty well! I’ve done other pics since then, but this was the first.

Anyway, I’ve been designing a character that could potentially be an alternate fursona for me, because as much as I love Valeford, there’s certain situations that don’t work well when you have a giant meathook attached to your face! Especially ones involving noses and lips, y’know what I mean, wink wink nudge nudge? I mulled long and hard over things like species and aesthetic, and toony bat just spoke to me! He’s already passed several tests, such as scenarios and actions in which he could partake, and I just have a lot of fun drawing him!

He’s very much inspired by Batty from Fern Gully, whom I’ve always had a fond attraction toward even as a kid. This is just a bust, but I have some full-body sketches in the works too, which I hope to expand upon and upload soon. I didn’t want to deviate too far into “dog with big ears and wings” territory, but there are some things I had to compromise on, such as color (I didn’t want his belly or face to be monochrome) and nose (conventional fruit bat noses, which are like plump swirls, don’t lend well to these kinds of characters, so this one is kind of a compromise).

I think you’ll like him once you see all of him. =) I’ll provide a full rundown of his character then too; it just makes sense to do so once I have his full physical profile finalized.