Done by   knuckleb0ne

It’s Morbin’ Time

Okay, there’s a lot to unpack here! First of all, I absolutely ADORE how this came out. I was super excited for this the moment I saw the original WIP and it went above and beyond my expectations. Thank you so much, knucklebone!

Second, yes! There are indeed uh, some differences!

-He’s a vampire now! Or uh, a vampire dragon! How does a dragon become a vampire? I DUNNO. Or well, I mean, I do know, but it’s some overly complex lore. But I mostly blame the fact that I grew up consuming a lot of “femboi vampire” media, mainly Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Vampire Hunter D. I also -absolutely love- Malzeno from Monster Hunter and the fact that he’s a literal vampire dragon…thing. So, I decided to be like “LET’S DO IT, VAMP DRAGON, LESS GOOOO”

-I wanted to give Raix a more “swimmer” body, but still wanted him to look lithe. But some extra muscle definition was important to me. Didn’t want him to look like a twig anymore.

-BIGGER, MORE ANIME LOOKIN-ASS HAIR. I simp a bit for Marluxia in Kingdom Hearts, so I basically was like “you know this guy? That’s the hairstyle I want”

-A forked tongue! I’m somewhat slipping into what I jokingly call my “monster fucker arc” (Rathalos…my beloved…unfgh <3 ) and I was planning on doing a lot more things for the design. Frills were a thought, as was a cobra-like hood, but I figured that’d be a bit TOO much. However, I wanted to add a forked tongue to Raix, but not like, a thin one. I wanted it to be THICC. Cuz I…I dunno, it’s hot. In the rare moments I do get to pred, ya’ll probably like seeing a bigger tongue anyway.
-HE GOT ‘DAT HETEROCHROMIA. I’ve always wanted to give Raix two different eye colors, but I never got around to it. With his whole vamp awakening, I decided now was the perfect time to do so! So, we still got the same blue eye-color on the right, but now we got a cool edgy lookin- ass red eye on the left! Neat!

-WINGS! Finally, my boi can perhaps be an actual dragon for once with some wings! But since I like having my wings optional (mostly to save the sanity of artists who draw me) plus, I’m also an edgy little mfer, I wanted to have Raix have -literal blood wings- that he can form whenever he wants. Cool, neat and very unsanitary! =D

-WE GOT THE DRIP! I’ve always had an idea for an outfit for Raix to wear. It’s shown up in some of my older pics, here and there, but I’ve never had a chance to really get something designed for him to wear. Well, with my whole above bits I wrote about me simping for games like Castlevania and anime af vampires, I basically pointed at Soma and Alucard from Castlevania and was like “Ima steal their drip”

So, it’s basically 4 layers of clothing. The Soma-style overcoat with the fur collar that he wore in Aria of Sorrow.

Followed by the Alucard coat underneath that + waistcoat, shirt and pants. I also didn’t plan on him wearing boots, but after I saw it, I was like “Actually, I like this!” So…I guess that means you can think about his paws getting sweaty or some shit, lmao.

Also, I’ve always liked the idea of having Raix use a rapier, so I kinda had a really fun idea of something stylized with some kinda “black rose” motif. Anime af, and stylish!

All in all, this came out wonderfully and has been in the works for quite some time. I’ve been wanting to redesign Raix for probably over a year now and I had a lot of ideas, but I really needed to go through them all before I could finally put together a document that was like “yeah, I’m REALLY happy with this actually, let’s get that new ref now”

I still got some older art with my older design to upload, but I’m looking forward to getting plenty of new pics with my new design now! <3