Samyaza

I applied and got accepted into a new Finnish comic jam called The Last Bite, with this guy as my character. TLB is an improvisation comic about the world of illegal dog fighting and it takes place in Mexico. While no one of the artists involved condones dog fighting the slightest, I thought it would be an interesting setup that differs from most of the comic jams I've encountered, and a great opportunity for a horror fan such as myself to get to draw some blood and guts. 

Samyaza is a wolf-kangal mix with some distant sighthound influence. He's about the size of a large wolf. He's been fighting for all of his life, but at the current age of seven his career is starting to go downhill as he's not as fast and strong as he used to be. Most of the time he's calm, patient, stoic and can be reasoned with, but when he's forced into ring he has to show his cunning, self-serving and highly dangerous side. He fears his human masters, mortal wounds and death and keeps ripping other dogs to pieces only to be saved from being put down himself.

Staedtler pigment liner and Gimp.

Artwork, character ©CanisAlbus

He's named after one of the fallen angels in Christian and Jewish mythology. His owner is into occult.

I tried really hard to make him look like he had a bit of wolf in him, which was surprisingly difficult. Eventually I decided to give him a low stance and eyes that look deeper and more feral. His eye color was inspired by the color of cognac.
There always has to be at least a drop of sighthound blood in my characters, it seems. Got to have that glorious roman nose.