This image of my avatar/fursona was a gift by fantasy artist Benjamin Yackley ( http://www.furaffinity.net/user/bjsutter ). The character is ©me, but the artwork is ©him. :)

There are a lot of artists who's work I love. There are some artists who are not only highly talented, but are good people/friends besides. But there are only a few artists who are all of that plus people I truly admire on a professional level. Ben is one of those artists. :)

I had the pleasure of meeting him once at Further Confusion in 2006. We even did a panel together on character creation and development. Afterward, he was generous enough to draw a gift sketch of Arc. This was probably the first time I'd been able to stand and watch while my avatar was being drawn. As a non-artist myself, it's an amazing experience. And the result is probably one of my favorite renderings of Arc to date.

The 'cape' you see here is meant to be Arc's wings folded down over his shoulders. I'm not really sure Arc's wings actually CAN fold like that, but I can't deny that the effect looks uber-cool. It's also my fault that there are three Sol Stones in the breastplate when there should only be one (The Sol Stone is the power source for Arc's techno armor. There are smaller stones set in his sword and blaster, as well.) I neglected to mention that the stone is set on the left-side of the armor - directly over the heart - until AFTER he'd drawn one in the middle. Oops. Fortunately Ben came up with a unique way of making it all look good. :)

Actually the armor turned out to be the thing I like to show off most about this image. The boots here, for example, are the most accurate depiction to date. They have a more authentic draconic foot and claw structure, but retain the plantigrade ankle and heel of previous images. It's a combination I think works REALLY well for Arc. This pic also does a great job in showing off the armor's tail section. I try to describe it to people as being a 'third leg' of equal length to the other two (thus Arc's tail is well armored near the base, but the rest is left bare.) Now, thanks to Ben, I don't have to tell people what it's supposed to look like. I can just show them. :)

Thank you, Benjamin, for this incredibly awesome gift! And keep up the wonderful work. Your creative genius has done much to inspire my own imagination. :)