A.K.A. "Sentinel Bishop's back."

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Melee looked out the open window of the keep, at the fancy castle walls, the snowcapped mountains behind them, and towards the cold night sky above. Of all the places he thought he'd wind up, never would he have imagined becoming a Sentinel in the most prestigious city he's ever known, in the service of some of the highest-ranking people in all of Silvery. When he was offered that deal so long ago, he thought it to be some kind of trick at first; that he was going to be betrayed at some point and made an example of for his past sins... but he wasn't in much of a position to say "no," anyway.

...

Luckily for him, those Silverian knights upheld their end of the bargain... every part of it.
They cleared his name, paid off whatever bounties may have been placed on him, supplied the gear and training he needed to become a worthy soldier... and all he had to do was fulfill his end of things. The details of that bargain Melee agreed to... I'd like to save for another time, but know that among them included having to give up his old fashion habits. He didn't like letting go of that part of him - he loved the pretty and delicate feeling that came with such clothes, after all - but it was getting harder and harder to maintain that desired feminine appearance as he grew, anyway. Embracing his masculinity wasn't all bad, though... accepting his body for what it was made him more confident and braver. From it, he felt... strong, and there was certainly something about that feeling that he liked almost as much as feeling pretty, even if it wasn't the same.

No, his only real regret was that his old friend chose not to come with him on this journey. He had such strong feelings for her, having grown close during their time together, and Melee even successfully bartered to have her come with him when he accepted that deal so long ago, but... alas, she felt differently on the matter and he couldn't bring himself to force her along. For the friendship to end the way it did stung the otherwise stoic warrior, even now after so much time has passed, and thinking about it dampened his mood. But he hopes one day they will meet again, and that maybe... just maybe... they can be friends once again.

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You didn't think Sentinel Bishop was going to be a one-and-done type of deal, did you? I drew a concept drawing of this version of Melee back in July of last year, and while the design still isn't quite finalized and I'm still trying to figure some things out, I am comfortable in saying that Sentinel Bishop's ultimate appearance will likely not stray too far from these two drawings.

Some of you already know I've had this take of Melee tumbling about in my head for years prior to drawing him, but you'd be surprised how long it took me just to figure out a good armor design for him to have; I actually originally envisioned the sentinel wearing a suit of fancy plate mail, but it turned out to be anachronistic to the time period my dragons lived in and wouldn't be thing among knights until centuries later, around the tail end of the Middle Ages/early Renaissance era. Wound up having to look up a lot of older medieval stuff to get a good idea of what would work for Melee and his time period, and this chainmail/crude plate combo is... still technically anachronistic to the time period they live in (late 800's/early 900's), but far far less so and easier for me to hand wave with excuses like "Silverburg's a little more advanced than most medieval cities due to their vast resources and wealth."

This drawing wound up taking a lot longer to do than I would've liked. I started drawing it up soon after finishing my last Day Job Doodle, and although I got a competent draft down early on (link below), trying to make a refined take on it took several weeks and many failed attempts. I didn't have a draft worth coloring until nearly a month later, and I knew coloring this pic was going to be a very time-consuming process due to it being a night piece. However, I was determined to see things through and have not only a new drawing for the month of February, but also one that would look visually distinct in my gallery when placed next to everything else. So I persisted, terrified of botching the colors every step of the way and trying to be careful... only for my phone camera to not catch a lot of the shading I did, anyway.

...
Yeah... if this drawing looks like it's seen a lot of digital touching up, that's because it has. All attempts at getting a good picture of this drawing resulted in a lot of the black shadows not really showing and many of the colors getting eaten away. If I wanted to share this picture, I was going to have to "cheat" and digitally fix virtually every part of the drawing, effectively making this less of a pen sketch and more of a hybrid drawing. I always do digital touch-ups of my pen sketches - mostly adjustments to contrast, brightness, and saturation to fix the colors, but the amount of touching up I've been having to do with these drawings has grown more and more as I desire to make them into something more than just some random doodles at work. This one has by far seen the most digital adjustments, but if it means producing a file that looks more like the actual sketch in person and (more importantly) is more aesthetically more pleasing to look at, then it was worth it.

Hopefully, you'll agree with me. Even if you don't, please know that the photos alone really only show so much and I feel I'd be doing the sketches an injustice to simply share them as is. These may be pen sketches I do at work on cardboard scraps, but they deserve better and so do my viewers.

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Artwork and Melee are mine and mine alone.

Part of my "Day Job Doodle" series, in which I attempt to use the quieter moments of my job to make pen sketches on cardboard scraps, as those are the only real materials available on-site. That said, this particular piece also saw a lot of digital touching up upon completion to help colors and shadows better stand out.




BONUS
First Draft / Base Colors
The original draft isn't too different from how the final pic turned out, outside of the positioning of some minor details and that Melee's overlooking the city itself instead of a castle wall and some mountains, but I had a really hard time trying to recreate that for a cleaner sketch. I also thought I'd take a picture of the final drawing before I started applying the shading, because I knew it was going to demand a lot out of me and it would made for a neat comparison pic once things were complete.