friends and rivals

Before we begin, allow me to spell out some biases of mine.

1. When it comes to introducing a character, I favor full-figure presentations.
2. I like images that insinuate a story; better yet, a consistent series of such images.
3. I have an affinity for beauty and the female form, be it human, or not quite human.
4. Attractive women become particularly arousing to me in seriously high heels, and I attribute this to a confusion of two basic instincts: mating and hunting. Thus, the concept of good-looking women on hooves is erotic to me.

The reader may now conclude that I like Friends and Rivals. That would be correct. In fact, I like it well enough that I was willing to subsidize a premium membership so that I could post this critique. In so doing, I hope to stimulate the artist into showing us more of the story, or the situation, that this image is so pregnant with.

In the artist's own words, we read that these two lovely anthros are slaves or serfs of an unseen shepherd. The way she uses that word makes one suspect that, in their world, "shepherd" is roughly equivalent to "earl" under a feudal-type system. This, of course, raises myriad questions. For example:

• What species populate their world, and what is the inter-species hierarchy?
• What species is the shepherd?
  (It appears that we shall never see the shepherd,
  but one can speculate that he could be anthro, as well.)
• What are the local customs, chores, yearly cycle, economy?
  (Another bias of mine is that I really don't need
  armed conflict, so I'm not going to ask for that!)
• Could we see more of the general environment, please?
  (Landscape, architecture, maps.)

As it turns out, the artist has recently begun to expand on this theme. I invite the viewer to observe the recent Bianca's Morning and the earlier Pastorale (for example), and note how consistently Bianca's face is presented: I find that gratifying and meritorious, for it denotes clarity of concept and is not easily done.

The one shortcoming I find of this artist so far is a weakness in backgrounds. That may be unimportant when presenting characters, but in the long run one would certainly like to see establishing shots or maps.

May the Muse continue by your side, DollBlue!