Yeah sorry guys, not a furry :< but would it count if he loves the she-fur anthro ladies? ... guess not.

This doesn't happen often... I actually finished a piece over a stream/broadcast/LIVE session and as far as I'm concerned, that's a feat to behold because that barely ever happens. Anyway... I'd throw in a beat of a story for this one because this guy is a significant character in a future project of mine I hope to get started on sometime this month.

Lotes Herder.

I've had this guy sitting around in my head for a while, a few sketches here and there but nothing ever really put down with feelin' like I did on this. Coincidentally, I was about to sort of live out a part of my dream about him while playing Mass Effect by customizing Commander Shepard as Lotes... given he doesn't have long hair like this but this is the general idea really.

God I love this character...

He's a bunch of things I wish I could be, a total badass... gunslinger... lives in the future, that sorta thing. Alright y'all I won't get into it any further than that.

I had alot of fun working on this one though.

I might update a story into this one some time in the future... or maybe in another art piece about him, we'll see.

==UPDATE, yup... there's a 'story' involved:

THE RED LOTUS

(Orion) He's the only man throughout the known galaxies to ever outgun me.

(Wolf) Really? I've never even heard of this guy, who is he?

(Orion) His name's Lotes.

(Wolf) Lotes? Like the flower?

(Orion) With an e, yes, he based his existence solely around the idea as well.

(Wolf) What is he, some kind of maniacal botanist?

(Orion) That's everyone's initial response when he's brought up, but no... he just really loves the concept of the lotus flower.

(Wolf) What's so special about a flower? It's just a flower...

(Orion) Lotes is a very spiritual man. Not so far to the extent of madness or zeal, not particularly religious either though he holds a high moral compass to his standards.

(Wolf) How do you mean?

(Orion) Lotes is a fond believer, or at least finds distinct fascination, in Hindu culture. Polytheistic religion, gods, goddesses, romantic views really... it all really comes down to the flower specifically and its mundane origins.

(Wolf) I don't know much about lotus flowers.

(Orion) Neither did I till I met Lotes. He explained to me how a lotus flower is iconic to purest beauty and greatness from less than extraordinary origins. That the lotus flower is grown native in muddy environments, swamps, places where you would least expect beauty and yet it presents itself. From there you can take the meaning apart, it's where Lotes finds comfort in it all. Vague dispositions in how to gauge who he really is, it suits him, comforts him.

(Wolf) I still don't get it...

(Orion) The element of surprise, mystery, in the most romantic way to present one's self. Living as a MeRC is a kind of romance, a kind of mystery, Lotes would explain to me. We live as weapons, tools to the highest bidder and only set in our moral high ground when true corruption presents itself. Lotes didn't operate that way... he believed in an elegance of the situation and that if the outcome did not produce what he felt necessary, he ignored them.

(Wolf) He must not have had many customers.

(Orion) You'd think so, and that was partially true however he made enough revenue to stay in the game but did enough to keep him from being as infamous as he could be... but put anyone against him and you'd be caught dead, twice, if he had it his way.

(Wolf) Twice? Is he brutal?

(Orion) No, not at all. In fact, he's one of the most pleasant human beings I have ever encountered. Calm, collected, straight forward, eloquent... but passionate. He often found himself jumping in lapses of emotions yet never let them consume him. He kept a cool head under fiery contemplations-- he was like living poetry. A kind of example by Edgar Allen Poe or James Joyce depending on how he felt at any particular moment in time.

(Wolf) But what makes him so dangerous?

(Orion) He's a skilled marksman, a purist gifted with unbelievable talent.

(Wolf) What do you mean by purist?

(Orion) We succumb to a sort of dependency on the tech during operations. Lotes used little to no tech on his missions. A purist. If he was in over his head, then he would consider it. Though that was rare.

(Wolf) Wait... you mean he wouldn't even use shields?

(Orion) He told me one time that he hated the broken momentum shields gave when projectiles crossed into the proxi-perimeter they offered.

(Wolf) You're syaing he'd rather get shot and have the bullet connect than be safe?!

(Orion) I'm saying that even if he did get hit, he'd rather have the momentum of the blow carry through him than on him. But that never happened.

(Wolf) What do you mean?

(Orion) I watched him one time, holding back just to see how his performance really was... I underestimated him and was amazed at his ability. Every bullet fired at him he seemed to just... flow past them. It's as if he could tell where each bullet's trajectory was going just how martial combatants could predict future executions by watching their opponent's footwork or shifting center of gravity. Lotes could instantly calculate bullet trajectory instantaneously, every shot, every bullet, every time.

(Wolf) He had to have gotten upgrades...

(Orion) Like I said, a purist. He could pass through many security clearances because his body was not pumped with nano machines or cybernetic enhancements that would be picked up or registered by scanners... he was a culmination, proof, of how far human performance could really go.

(Wolf) That's crazy! You're one of the best, if not THE best gunsman I've ever met, how did he beat you?

(Orion) I only say he outgunned me only because he never killed me, nor was I able to kill him. Lack of skill at the time perhaps, maybe he had more experience than me, maybe we saw something equal in ourselves against each other... whatever it was, neither of us died the day we drew sights on one another.

(Wolf) I take it you too became friends there after?

(Orion) We sustained rivalries and grudging jealousies against one another but we came to respect one another shortly after. We teamed up for a while and it was a great thing he and I had going on but things got edgy after a while.

(Wolf) What happened?

(Orion) Lotes accepted one last mission with me and called it quits... I never asked why. I figured his personal reasons were enough and I trusted his judgment that he wasn't doing anything irrational. He was passionate, but he never thought up anything short without realizing the full extent of his decision. Since then he became a consultant as a weapons master, running information to the highest bidder ever so often, and every now and then... a mysterious debriefing would pop up now and again over MeRC chatter coms about strange, spontaneous event of insurmountable odds done by a single man donning red armor.

(Wolf) Red?

(Orion) It was strange, his color choices for operation. Typically, he donned green armor with black and white trim and camouflage patterning. On most dire situations, he wore a red suit of armor. It was actually an iconic ordeal, it really was the same suit of armor but infused with pigment morphing nanites that alternated the absorbing and reflecting prismatic arrays of light. Green represented typical, low profile operations... but when he wore red? You could expect Armageddon from his abilities, no less.

(Wolf) That's crazy...

(Orion) He went by many aliases, though they all meant the same thing: Crimson Nelumbo, Blood Nymph, Nucifera... or as he was most notably known, The Red Lotus.