12 months of Dogs Of War - December (Keane) 02

While the intention of Keane was to be a powerful melee fighter, it wasn't long before his lack of ranged firepower limited his usefulness. Naturally the solution was to give him a gun. Of course, with his claw hands he couldn't wield a conventional firearm, so the next logical step was to give him a large calibre back-mounted cannon. Shortly afterwards came his armour and helmet - which contains a head up display linked to the gun, which Keane cybernetically controls in the same way as his arms - essentially the gun acts as an extra appendage. The ears on the helmet also contain audio dampeners so he doesn't deafen himself when firing.

I'm still um-ing and ah-ing about the design. I haven't decided whether to give Keane one gun or a double barreled gun and I'm still figuring out how Keane can reload it during battle, or even if I should give the gun(s) a large enough magazine to last the entirety of your average engagement.

Same goes with the design of his claws - the design isn't 100% final there either. I like the 'jaws of life' style design, but originally the blades were longer which would have presented difficulties when Keane was to run on all fours. I tried the idea of more 'stubby' fingers (as seen left), but wasn't sold on the idea and went back to the claws, this time separating them into lower and upper parts, not only giving Keane better articulation, but the upper section retracts, shortening the overall length and providing a partial solution to the running problem. But like I said, I still haven't settled on a design and things could very well change in future.

And with that, completes my 12 month showcase of the main characters for my Dogs Of War series. Thank you all who bothered to look my characters during this time. From next year, there may be fewer posts on this blog now that I'm not tied to a theme which pressures me to upload posts, but will also try to spread my art around my Twitter, Tumblr, Patreon, Youtube and various other online platforms to try and get more exposure.

12 Months of Dogs Of War - December (Keane)

Well, it's December and here we reach the final character in this Dogs Of War nonsense I've been doing over the course of the year.

This is Keane and he is a bastard. No, I don't mean he's a bastard personality-wise, but instead is a bastard to animate. My animation style tends to be more 'cut out' - essentially a bunch of objects that make up each character that I push around when I animate. Not your traditional 'redraw every frame' style. Look, just go to my YouTube channel (TheIronGauntlet) and see my stuff for yourself.

All those rigid edges mean a lot of redrawing if I want to see smooth movement in my animation. Keane alone is the reason I would consider Dogs Of War to be a 3d animated series rather than 2d.

Keane is another character that doesn't (yet) have a surname. Not only that, but I also haven't decided what nationality he should be or even what dog breed he is. Very much a blank slate right now, though recently I have been thinking of making him Eastern European or something.

Keane is a powerful bruiser of a character, his origin being that he had been critically wounded and had his arms replaced with these oversized claws you see here.
The inspiration for Keane came from the Warhammer 40k table top minatures games, specifically from the Inquisitor line of gaming (is that still a thing or did they discontinue it?). Some of the characters I saw used in battle reports were crazed power-claw wielding gladiators and I thought it would be interesting to throw a cybernetic melee warrior into the mix. He did start off as a crazed, unhinged and unstable fighter, but over time I changed him to be more refined and intelligent. He actually has a soft side and his powerful claws become a liability more than anything.