I've been trying to wait until we had a new scanner to post some of these drawings I came up with for my project, but impatience won out

The close up revamp of my story's protagonist.
The first name of the character who was once known as "Sydney Darkholm" has made a new, permanent change to what you see below. Her black hair is a lot shorter than before, her eye color was changed from storm cloud grey to bright, electric blue, and I think I succeeded in giving her a face that looks young & innocent and yet somehow clever & mature at the same time.

Will update from time to time as I make more progress on the image.

[Edit] 11/29/2012 = Not the way I originally planned to color her hair. I don't have a detachable mouse to work with, so trying to color it that way wasted a lot of time and gave me a headache.


__SHORTHAND CHARA INFO___________

Sherazade "Shay" Darkholm

Codename: Spirit

D.o.B: October 31

Blood Type: O+

Height: 4'12

Race: Hybrid Werebeast (mix-breed Werewolf father, mix-breed Weretiger mother)

Ethnicity: American-Romany and Japanese descent

Familiar: Fusa the Falingriff (Black Cat + Raven)

Hometown: Kyoto, Japan

Current Residence: Soho District of Genova City, Nexus. Rents a room at the Illawara's house.

Energy Color: Electric Blue

Regalia: Satori

Theme(s): "Vanilla Twilight" By Owl City & "Storm" (T.M. mix) by The Yoshida Brothers

__Background____
Shay is a talented Mage with a long lost power known as Empathy, a rare ability that is said to have brought misery and persecution to those who had it. After years of being tutored by her family and godmothers, she decided to earn her independence by leaving Japan to study abroad at the Zenith Academy, only for loneliness, a lack of purpose, and harassment from the brattiest kids at school to make her regret the decision to leave home.
Then, on the night of her 16th birthday, what should have been the end of her current hardships changed quite dramatically. An unearthly monster known as a Hellbeast appeared out of nowhere and started chasing Shay in an attempt to absorb her unique energy. After accidentally dragging her schoolmate Ripley Kraven into the fray, the pair joined forces in order to escape certain death, and from then on things continued to change for them and virtually everyone they meet.

Because Empathy is such a rare and largely forgotten power, many people mistake Shay to be some type of mind reader (the obvious exceptions being her family and more intimate friends). With no evidence of there being others like her, she is believed to be the only one of her kind that currently exists in the world, meaning that the specifics about her nature must be kept secret.

__Personality_____
Since controlling her Empathic abilities means training regularly and to not be overcome by her emotions, Shay's ambiguous, cat-like personality is her most emphasized trait. She can be outright cynical, stubbornly independant, and brutally honest to a near fault, while at the same time Shay is revealed to be very compassionate and is self-concious about how being an Empath controls her life.
Shay tries to keep a low profile and doesn't like it when her privacy invaded, so she won't pry into someone else’s business unless she has a legitimate reason for doing so. She is well-mannered and very stoic under normal circumstances, but displays a seething temper when her patience wears thin or her boundaries are crossed.

There are no known methods of training someone with Empathy, so her godmothers put her through a lot of hard training in hopes that strengthening Shay's character would enable her to remain in control of her powers. She developed a rational, self-controlled attitude from this treatment, as displayed by her excellent posture, humble mannerisms, and well-spoken accent. She is a firm believer in the idea “There’s a time and place for everything”.
While she is well trained in a number of skills, ranging from combat and survival to the scholarly and artistic, Shay was considerably sheltered by her family/mentors, so she's not immune to becoming flustered when confronted with an unfamiliar situation.

Shay is determined to use her rank as a Peace Maker in hopes of controlling her powers in order to one day live a rich, full life. For reasons she won't express, she's also taken an interest in studying Hellbeasts...

____________________________________________
Artwork, Character, story, & all related material (C) me. NO STEALING