Bubo ascalaphus and the wanderer man

“The Pharaohess, the Great Queen… She guides me through this endless desert, She knows every corner of it. She’s the only presence in this entire desert and I owe Her my submission and devotion. Uhoo? Uhoo!”

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Alt-text: a digital drawing depicting a bearded man, seen in profile, walking across an endless desert, while an owl (meant to be a Bubo ascalaphus, Pharaoh eagle-owl, a large-sized owl native to deserts, with deep orange eyes, prominent ear tufts and strong physiognomy) is perched on his neck. The man, wearing marine purple trousers and marine blue shirt, walks barefooted over the sand with some difficulty, seemingly weary, while he looks downward at his hands, which are extended next to his waistline with the palms facing up as if he were carrying something on his hands (but there’s nothing being held). The owl, in contrast, is chillingly calm and simultaneously focused, asserting dominance over the man as she looks at his face with the same focused (and majestic) look that of when owls are watching a prey. Her head is slightly tilted leftwards (in relation to them; to us viewers, it’s towards us), adding to an uncanny tenderness. Behind them, a deep red sky typical of late dusk blends with the sand at the horizon, while an enormous red crescent moon emits a deep red glow, a glow of which is the source of light for the entire scene (shadows are cast on the ground).

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Originally, my drawing involved a bit of blood (where the owl’s claws meet the man’s neck because, in fact, it’s something quite expected if an eagle-owl were to perch onto someone’s neck with all her mighty, as her claws seem very sharp, more so than other owl genera) and the man only wore trousers (no nudity because there’s not even a detailed chest, but the lack of a shirt may be seen/understood as so), so I made a more family-friendly version (no blood and he’s wearing a proper shirt) in order to make it fully NSFW-free. The original version can be seen in my PixelFed gallery.

Also, I wanted to have a time-lapse of my drawing, just like I recorded for the previous drawing (Athene cunicularia, burrowing owl) I posted here. However, drawings such as this one tend to be more complex (this drawing has 33 layers, some of which use composition modes such as “linear burn” and “glow”, which uses a bit more GPU; in comparison, my Athene cunicularia drawing involved just 13 layers and no composition mode), making my phone more prone to hiccuping/hanging/crashing during my drawing sessions (and recording a time-lapse is, itself, additional GPU load alongside the load from the drawing app).

@artshare@lemmy.world