#Fehizoro and Tsimilefy

[erkhyan]

Diamanga (“beautiful walk”) is a precolonial martial art from Madagascar’s highlands. It was traditionally used to show off a young man’s agility and physical fitness, and was the subject of many popular demonstrations and competitions. Though there were several variations, a common rule was that only feet and legs could be used in offensive strikes.

Fehizoro, owing to his lower-than-average dexterity, has a heavily defensive fighting style. While he used to be the kid who usually went home bruised and bleeding, training with Tsimilefy has allowed him to become much better at dodging and parrying. He’s nowhere as good enough to enter fighting competitions, but good enough to regularly spar with Tsimilefy.

Tsimilefy, to put it best, is a show-off. Flying kicks, cartwheeling kicks, anything that looks acrobatic is his thing, which has earned him the nickname of Ikingadaka (“he of the spry kicks”) in competitions. Among the other competitive fighters, Tsimilefy’s reputation is that of a tricky opponent: while his acrobatics make him look easy to destabilize and take down, he is also known for his ability to switch seamlessly between showing off and taking down his opponents with only a handful of strikes.

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This drawing featured yet another experiment to use Blender and publicly available 3D models for backgrounds/scenes.

My GPU suffered for this.

But I’m really happy with it.

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You can get the (large) full-res version here on Patreon.

#malagasy artist #artists on tumblr #furry #furry art #my art #Erkhyan art #Madagascar #made with krita #krita #Fehizoro and Tsimilefy #art #illustration #Fehizoro (Erkhyan) #Tsimilefy (Erkhyan) #own art #own characters #oc #ocs #original characters #gay

[erkhyan]

Miara-dia

“Traveling together”

This took four months and a frankly bewildering number of redraws, and I definitely missed the intended deadline of Pride Month by quite a bit—but woohoo, it’s finally done!

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This drawing is available on Patreon.

#furry art #Madagascar #made with krita #krita #Fehizoro and Tsimilefy #art #illustration #furry #Malagasy artists #gay art #gay #Fehizoro (Erkhyan) #Tsimilefy (Erkhyan) #own art #own characters #oc #ocs #original characters #artists on tumblr #Erkhyan art #my art

[erkhyan]

Tsimilefy isn’t good with words and can barely read. While the latter would only become an issue for him in his later occupation (as one half of a courier team), he has always used his skill as an athlete to cover up his shame at being unable to handle even the most basic traditional speeches that all men are expected to know.

Fehizoro has below-average dexterity. He went from being a notoriously clumsy kid to being the teenager who got bruised and injured more often than anyone else during the athletic activities expected from boys his age.

As teenagers, Tsimilefy and Fehizoro initially bonded over a shared interest in the game of fanorona and playing the sodina flute. Their friendship was quickly cemented when they realized they could coach each other to deal with their respective weaknesses.

Like many young people his age, Fehizoro has had a couple of sexual experiences before, all of them with girls who quickly moved on to more enthusiastic partners. It would be a few years before he realized that his sexual orientation is basically “Tsimilefy”.

As a semi-popular athlete, Tsimilefy has been pursued by more than a few—women mostly, but also a few men. But while he has gladly indulged in most of these trysts, he never quite “clicked” with them, either because of his insecurities or because of theirs.

Fehizoro initially hid his budding attraction to Tsimilefy out of embarrassment, but given all the time they spent around each other, it really didn’t take long for Tsimilefy to catch on to what was happening. A first sexual tryst quickly followed. Exactly one year after that, they became each other’s first romantic partners.

#oc lore #oc stuff #Fehizoro and Tsimilefy #Look I really love these boys which I originally created for the simple purpose of drawing a couple of random sex scenes

[erkhyan]

i feel like every BIPOC creative has had a moment in their life where they're like "wait...i don't have to make these characters white like most every other character i see?" and it was so liberating

  — harjit is writing ✨🧡 (@_harjitsingh) December 17, 2022

Just resharing this tweet so I can comment that, even as a furry artist, I did have a moment like this.

My first furry OCs used to be strongly inspired by 1980s-to-1990s Western talking animal cartoons. You know, those characters that technically don’t have human ethnicities, but you just know they’re meant to be French, or American, or British, or wherever the cartoon is being made (also includes those TV shows made in Japan but set in Europe—see: Sherlock Hound).

It took over a decade before the thought even crossed my mind that… what if my characters were explicitly from Madagascar? Name, background and all?

And now I’ve got Njara, Onja, Mijoro, Tsimilefy, Fehizoro, and more…

[erkhyan]

Tsy Tahotra, Tsy Henatra

“Unafraid, unashamed”

This Malagasy idiom normally has negative connotations (in the sense of “brazen”), but I’ve decided that its core meaning, free of all judgment, is the best way to illustrate Pride month.

These characters are named Fehizoro (“cornerstone”, left) and Tsimilefy (“who does not bend”, right).

This is the fifth drawing I’ve done of them. If this is the first one you’ve seen… well, this is the first Safe-For-Tumblr drawing I’ve made of them.

Teehee.

#made with krita #furry art #anthro #pride month #Fehizoro and Tsimilefy #furry #Malagasy artists #gay #gay art #Madagascar #art #illustration #Fehizoro (Erkhyan) #Tsimilefy (Erkhyan) #Erkhyan art #my art