Inktober 2019: #5 skekSo by TricksterBlueJay on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

The Emperor

I learned the hard way just how difficult it is to draw clothes :,v

With the launch of the Netflix series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance I've been itching to try my hand at drawing Dark Crystal characters, particularly the skeksis.

I watched the original movie around 1989-1991, when I was about 3-5 years old, and while I didn't really remember much of the story, I remembered the skeksis. My dad used to do the Chamberlain whimper to "scare" me off (I loved it, picked it too until my parents grew tired of it, haha) and I recall feeling a strange fascination with those rotting-old reptilian-birds-almost-like-dinosaurs creatures. It was mind-boggling for me at that age to learn all these crazy creatures were puppets (and it was my introduction to other Jim Henson's works, like Labyrynth and the Dinosaurs TV show), they always felt so very alive in my childhood memories. I rediscovered the movie again when I was a lot older, around 18-20 years old (more or less) and it was instant love again. The world is just so rich and enticing, the characters so compelling, and now I could appreciate the puppets and puppeteering as the work of art it was. And still is. You can imagine how elated I was when I heard Netflix was going to launch a prequel series and that there were lots of Dark Crystal side stories I didn't know about. I have to catch up with the novels!

Anyway, for this year's Inktober challenge I picked callanerial Dark Crystal prompt list. It was a difficult but fun challenge to try and draw old and new characters from this amazing universe (and I still feel I didn't made them justice, ha). Hope you like them.