#thorden

I’m coming back from a period of little online activity... Still not sure how much art I can keep up…but I had been working on this one for a while. It’s kind of a gift to my dear friend River/Raavihttps://www.deviantart.com/riverraven

This drawing features River’s husband Peter in Siderian form (top left), Falkner (top right), Yava (bottom left) and River (also goes by the name Raavi – bottom right). River and I had said for a long time that Peter and Falkner have a lot in common and that they could have been good friends.

Sadly, Peter passed away in October 2020 and as River and I had exchanged some photos, I found one in which River and Peter were at a concert with River's sister and her husband. This was such a lively portrait of them four that I thought to draw River and Peter in the same way, but now accompanied by their ‘equivalents’ – meaning Falkner for Peter and Yava for River.

The portrait didn’t come out exactly the way I wanted it as it became more detailed than I had planned and I struggled a bit with the light and background. In the end I decided to make it look more like a dream kind of setting.

For those who don’t know it yet: Siderians are northern horse-sized big cats.

See here the refsheets of Falkner and Yava: https://www.deviantart.com/felisglacialis/art/Falkner-reference-sheet-227111808 https://www.deviantart.com/felisglacialis/art/Yava-reference-sheet-206242233

I’ve been thinking a bit more about the prey species that Siderians hunt and what tactics they use. Siderians are very big cats (as tall as a horse) but they are relatively light built and may rely more on agility and speed rather than sheer strength. They can take down a moose alone and maybe even a bison and some other large bovids that exist in the ‘Siderian verse’ (I’m still exploring those). Some Siderians prefer to hunt solitary while others prefer to hunt in pairs or a small group.

Here you see Falkner and Yava forming a pair, chasing an American bison. Falkner has quite some stamina and speed, and it’s his task to chase the prey right into Yava’s claws as she waited in an ambush. The bison ran passed her here, leaving them both running after em and possibly jump on the bison from either side, forcing em down and bite eir throat or muzzle to suffocate em.

This takes place around Falkner’s homelands around Alaska. Long story short, Yava (from the Fjordlands aka Norway) travelled to the largest metacluster in the world and met Falkner. Afterwards, he joined her back to the Fjordlands.

See here more about Falkner: https://www.deviantart.com/felisglacialis/art/Falkner-reference-sheet-227111808

“gotta get your big hammered backside out of here now.”