Buckthorne + Landon Wolfe - Their Loss

...Guess whose work picked up for a bit and got swamped with family things (YET AGAIN)? |D; Hence why I took a silly amount of time to finally get something coloured >>; Funny thing is, I did have the CHARACTERS of this coloured for over a week or so... I just was all "OSHI- I really need to start some new sketches! D8" so I left the background incomplete until the other night ago. Yup, I'm smart OTL *dies*

But yes, here we go First art of 2014 completed! Sorry if updates will remain a bit slow this month - but my hubby is due to go back to the States the 21st of the month, so ;__; Naturally want to make the most of our time before he goes count (and while there IS still some time to do art in there, it's just not a high priority), so just bear with me there. All in due time!

Anywho, decided to go with an actual relevant scene to start off the year And involving a main-ish character who very much needs some more art love - Buckthorne (the black haired wolf), and interacting with a lesser known character who got his own updated reference last year, Landon (the brown haired wolf), who is also Buckthorne's little brother.

Not a very happy scene, is it? The story behind it is rather saddening. See, Buckthorne and Landon here were around 5 and 3 years old respectively, when their parents Svein and Diana blushbunnyc3.deviantart.com/ar… were killed (there's a whole plot bunny behind that). They all ended up in an orphanage, along with their sister, who is also Landon's twin, Kelsey blushbunnyc3.deviantart.com/ar… as well.

Well, maybe only a month, give or take, after arriving at the orphanage, Kelsey ends up getting (very?) sick and dies D: (considering how young she is, maybe her immune system just wasn't strong enough to fight whatever it was off) Which pretty much devastates her brothers (who are still coping with the loss of their parents to boot). Landon takes it especially hard... given she's his twin (hence the littermate bond they share as such, has him feeling like he's lost a part of himself). And it's not long before it's apparent to everyone else just how much he's suffering from her death.

Which is where this picture comes in ;; Given Landon is all he has left, Buckthorne is extremely helicopter older brother once they lose their sister. He senses the pain his little sibling is in, and is pretty much doing all he can to try to keep Landon's spirits up. But his efforts are ultimately fruitless - Landon has essentially given up and is no longer interested in even living on without his twin. He more or less stops eating and functioning, until he's sick/weak enough to pass on and join the family he's lost (kind of like... broken heart syndrome or that thing that canines can be affected by when they lose a pack member they were close to?)

It's pretty much the big reason why Buckthorne is so depressed DX He blames himself for not being able or enough to keep his little brother alive. Their final days together were exceedingly sad ones, which remain a gaping scar in his heart. He didn't want to believe Landon was slipping away from him and dying, until the very day it happened (which is also the day he first properly met Bullseye... but that's for another piece/story another day). Probably sufficient to say that Buckthorne also suffers survivor's guilt (given he's the only person in his family that doesn't die). Poor thing ;__;

Despite the sadness of this piece/scene, I'm quite pleased with how this came out~ Actually, the feels are really what make the piece - the forlorn and distant look in Landon's expression, yet the clutched grip he has on his older brother (the one person left keeping him there), and the anxiety and desperation in Buckthorne, who keeps a tight hold on his little brother (as if to signify the desperate hope he has just to keep Landon alive). But yeah, you guys get the idea

All © BlushBunnyC3