I have a few types of characters. QUITE a few. Among the archetypes that I have are Sidekick characters. Sidekicks, in this case, usually refer to small, usually non-anthro (but sentient) characters meant to be buddies with a larger, more important character...but sometimes said sidekicks ended up being more interesting to draw for me than their bigger companions (for example, Ricochet started life as a sidekick. Who's his buddy? My point exactly.)

A long while back, I had the most oddest of ideas drawing-wise: take some old character sidekicks (old Sonic-based ones, no less) and re-design them with what I like to call "jewel armor". I'm certain I had a source of inspiration at one point or another to where the armor concept originated, but this has unfortunately been lost in the sands of time.

Speaking of sands of time, here we have the oh-so-cleverly named Ra, a vulture with a scorpion-like tail. Dassit, that's all there was to the character. Ra here was buddies with a Mobian sphinx (later to be re-designed as a full-fledged desert lioness) named Karma, who I may post an old pic of later on.