Final: Cerastes

I almost feel guilty and cheap about how fast this one went. I had an idea about making rocks reflect the glow of Cerastes's marks, but it just didn't take. And for the most part, I was pleased with how he turned out. The marks look like they would in broad daylight, more or less. They only glow at night. And um ... ignore the moonlight scenery. Veskr inhabit the Indigo Veldt, so yes, there's a reason the grass is that color. I listened to 3 hours of Lewis Black's ranting while I colored blade after blade ...

I want to sic Cerastes on every person with a cellphone and an iPod. Because I nearly run you people over every day on my bike. You're all so blank-faced oblivious that you think the sidewalk is for you to dance down, hands out while you twirl out into the road, in front of of SUVs that I wish would run you down rather than honk at you, because it's obvious you can't hear in the first place.

I had a bad day.

I've also been meaning to thank for the best advice I've ever gotten on the use of colored pencils: to lay your lights down first, not your darks. And to for advice on using fixative.

Cerastes is so named because he slew a deadly crested viper when he was just a pup. Two years after he recieved his hunt marks, he began courting Aeria, the strongest daughter of the pack leader's litter. During this time a strange new veskr appeared, a markless male called Proditus, who had strange thoughts and ideas about gaining magic and the attention of a God. His new ideas were ignored and he was treated like an omega, disciplined more than once by Cerastes's fangs. One night Aeria rushed to find Cerastes and her father with the news that Proditus had lured away a pair of females and mated with them. He had tried to mate with Aeria as well, but she had wounded him and fled. Cerastes joined his leader and his packmates in a vengeful hunt, coursing Proditus through the dark forests near the human camps. But Proditus proved fiendishly clever, because he led his pursuers over a stake trap. All of the veskr were fatally impaled, save Cerastes, who suffered a pierced paw and numerous cuts. Humans came and muzzled Cerastes, putting a ring in his nose to curb his fury as they skinned his packmates. Muzzled and chained, Cerastes fought the camp dogs each night. Cerastes was eventually purchased by Helmuth, a Lion of Rezdan, as a gift for his fiance's eccentric father.