I really can't think of a better title, please pardon me. ^^;

So! This resulted from a conversation on one of kenyizsu 's submissions, specifically this one. Basically take the idea of Shoulder Angels but as sort of shoulder "Advice Snakes" instead, ha ha. And then I just, ended up making a new OC I guess?? Not sure if I'll keep her and her spirit snake buddies, or maybe give them away as an adoptable, but eh. :P

Anyways, this lady is a librarian (maybe from some ancient fantasy setting? I dunno, her outfit came to my mind without any backstory, so I'm mainly basing it off of that) who loves tea and helping people find the books they need. She's been a librarian for a long time, helping both regular visitors to adventurers trying to find some secret tomes for quests and the like. As long as they're respectful, she'll help them find what they need!

And her two snake buddies are spirits that give her advice! And they do genuinely give her and other people good advice, but a lot of the time they just like to gossip and eavesdrop on people in the library. They're not attached to her so they move/float about on their own, they just like to hang around on people's shoulders most of the time because, in their words, "it's quite comfortable!" :XD:

The full design of the Advice Snakes is meant to be similar to this Aztec double-headed serpent sculpture, so basically they're connected in the middle! The snake on the left is based on the green vine snake, and the one on the right is based on the hognose snake! I figured it would be more interesting for them to be different specific species of snakes. :D

Now onto some more technical stuff about this drawing! First and foremost, this drawing isn't even inked/lined in the way I normally do. This time I tried just cleaning up my base sketch as best as I could. I think it turned out... alright? It was definitely a lot quicker than having to do a sketch and then go over it again with pen brushes, but eh. think I prefer just using my regular line brushes because of the easy width variances they give me. Still, it was something new to try out.

Second, tried out some highlighting for this! It looks, alright, but it reminds me why I don't do highlights very often. :u

In particular, I'm admittedly a little iffy about the highlighting on her face, since it comes off looking more like face paint, almost? That obviously wasn't my intention, I think I need to practice with highlights more. :ohnoes:

I know that, with skin colors, shadows will be much more prominent on paler tones (and with some tones, you might not be able to see highlights/reflections off of very pale skintones at all). Meanwhile, highlights/reflection of light off of the skin will stand out more on darker skin tones, especially those that are very dark brown. Here is a photo that's a very good example of what I mean by the latter!

Though, the librarian's skin tone is more of in the middle range between pale and dark, and I'm wondering if maybe the highlight on her skin wasn't too necessary? Or maybe I could have just toned it down a little. Ahh, either way, it's something I'll have to keep in mind and practice with in the future, if I want to do more art with highlights and stuff. :u

Welp, in the end this ended up being a neat learning experience! Especially for something I made relatively quickly compared to most of my usual works, ha ha.

This art and the characters are © to me, Wren the Dragon Marquise! Please do not use my art without my permission, thank you. I may put these up as adoptables in the future, but I'll have to think about if it'd be worth it. :/