One of the celebrated images of the Skeksis ornamentalist, skekEkt, this portrait of sketZet, the Assassin, was originally created as a bas-relief on granite, adorned with precious gemstones and glass. Although dead by the time of the Great Conjunction, skekZet was celebrated in life as the most skilled Gelfling hunter amongst the Skeksis. Those who escaped the crushing claws of the Garthim soldiers were sure to fall to the swift kris-blade of sketZet, striking from the shadows. Unlike the other Skeksis, skekZet refused to drape his (although, skekZet has no true gender) entire body in heavy cloth, leaving his arms and upper torso partially bare, for the chance of feeling a hot splash of Gelfling blood upon his flesh. But skekZet was equally prone to the vanity common to the Skekis, and, did drape the rest of his body in layers of cloth and armor like the others, to hide the groteque truth of his twisted, bloated form. skekZet's cloak was his favorite garment, and unlike the rest of his garments, which he allowed to rot like other Skekis, simply draping a new layer over the top of the old instead of ever removing one, he replaced his cloak each time it became worn. But, he never let the color fade, and dyed it in the freshly-spilled blood of Gelflings. Their hatred and horror of skekZet, whose favored delicacy was also their flesh, eventually lead them to hunt the hunter, and skekZet fell to a trap, his body torn in into scraps of bloody flesh by the wrath of those he devoted his existence to hunting, simultaneously felling his urRu counterpart, the Diplomat.


And yeah, all that's a bunch of Dark Crystal inspired silliness concocted while I was drawing this guy, an original character based on Henson and Froud's ideas on the Skekis, of which the art book "The World of the Dark Crystal" details more than the movie ever does, although it still leaves the mind wandering and wondering more. And eventually concocting characters like skekZet the Assassin here. Because my brain wanders off like that. I was obsessed with the Dark Crystal when I was a kid, and thought that skeksis and garthim were the coolest things ever. XD And still agree that they're splendid creature creations. . .pretty sure I can blame this movie, and Hieronymous Bosch, for my fascination with spooky bird-men.

Prismacolor pencils on black presentation board. The colors in the original are slightly different, specifically, the purples used in the arm-drape thing and the crystal had more red in them, which somehow the scanner ate, and even though all the other colors adjusted back properly, the purple refused. But, still works well enough, even if it is a bluer purple, so I stopped fighting with it.