Cartoon Raccoon!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Some of you may remember that late last year I drew an image of a character that was an anthropomorphic raccoon that would have fit into Disney's Zootopia world for a Kingdom Hearts RP. That image was just a pen sketch and one during a time when I hadn't really drawn many animal characters.

For reference as to the image I'm talking about, I covered it here

Well, I've been having another go at it and I've sketched Milo Forager the Raccoon once again, this time having a bit more of an idea of how to draw it, with some studying of actual raccoons to help me get a better idea for its features.

So, I began with a sketch, which ended up coming out like this:

I feel like the proportions on this version fit the character much better than that initial sketch, such as in his body shape. The characters in Zootopia did tend to still have the proportions of their real counterparts. This includes the slim paws that, ironically, look somewhat like hands anyway, a wide body, especially near the back end and the head shape is closer to a racoon than the original version, though its a little difficult to show the exact shape of the muzzle from that angle.

Admittedly, I was initially a little unsure about this version purely on the sketch, as it doesn't show a lot of details where colours and shading is concerned.  A lot of the colour would bring out details in the character, which looks a little awkward without it. As such, I decided to do a test run with colour rather than going straight for a neat line art. Now, this isn't meant to be detailed or even neat, but rather I wanted to be certain that it wasn't the fact it lacked colour that made it a tad awkward.

So, this in mind, I tested colour on the sketch:

As you can see, veeeeeeerry rough colouring, since it was litterally just selecting areas and filling them. This would be far neater once the line art is clean and I get to the actual colour stage. But even with that in mind, just adding the colour to it does actually seem to make him stand out far more, and the slight awkwardness that bothered me isn't there any longer, especially around the face where the different fur shades stand out rather than looking a little out of place.

Still, I am much happier with this version of Milo than the original sketch I made all that time ago, so I may draw more of him in the future, once I've got a fully designed Keyblade for him to be able to show him as he is in the Kingdom Hearts Roleplay.

Plus it is pretty interesting designing keyblades, especially after having drawn Chidori for the commission (which I'll be covering next week after it's been handed over).

Still, as usual, happy to hear what anyone thinks :)

Until next time!

Tara