#Normally when I draw both Johnny and Gyro in an image I struggle the most with Gyro. But I actually struggled way more with Johnny here.

[fortune-fool02]

A Self-less Soul

Gyro Zeppeli x female reader

Requested by: @ymisiposts​

Warnings: angst

Thank you for the amazing request, I love this kind of stuff where one tries to protect the other from themself. This is kinda long. Please enjoy.

Sprinting down the ally, Gyro slid to a halt to throw a look over his shoulder just in time to catch a glimpse of the reptilian hybrid that seemed determined not to let him escape her. He bolted off again, hopping over a ledge and taking off only for the creature to leap over the ledge and continue chasing in a single, fluent motion. 

His hand coated in blood, holding down onto his wounded shoulder as he ran. Droplets of the crimson liquid trailing behind him, leading the infected female towards him. The rapid footsteps of the creature grew closer and closer no matter how fast he ran. His Steel Balls remaining in their holsters as he refused to use them on this creature. He was not going to use his weapon on his lover. 

The night had started out as any normal night did. The trio had decided to spend the night in Rocky Mountain Village to rest and Gyro had gone for a bit to gather food for them. When he had returned, he heard the sounds of a struggle of sorts and [Name]’s pained yells. Abandoning the supplies, he darted towards the house they were staying in, throwing the door open to find Johnny on the floor, blood trickling down his face and [Name] pinned to the table by a large, blue reptile, its claws digging into her flesh and drawing blood. 

Without hesitation, Gyro launched a Steel Ball at the Utahraptor, knocking it off of his lover and rushing over to her and Johnny. [Name] laid unconscious from the force of the impact of the attack, a bit of blood painting the back of her head was an indication to her unconscious state. Gyro scooped her up and set her on his back, and grabbed Johnny before slipping out the backdoor, slamming the door shut and pressing all his weight against it to keep Diego inside. 

In seconds, the door gave away under Diego’s attacks, forcing Gyro and Johnny onto the carcass of the bear. Gyro kept his hold on [Name], not wanting her to catch the Utahraptor’s attention. 

Once the dinosaur left to search for them elsewhere, the two males sighed in relief. It was at the moment Gyro felt [Name] shift on his back, a low groan was heard as she tried to move. He brought his hand up to her face, gently stroking it to assure her he was there. 

“Shh, it’s alright [Name]. Just stay quiet-” As his fingertips brushed over her cheek, he felt something odd about her skin. It felt... cracked. The kind of cracked one would feel on pottery. He stood up to look at her only for her to keep her grip on him, refusing to let go as she suddenly threw her weight to the side, sending both her and Gyro rolling down the rocky cliff and onto a patch of land. Pain scraped at his skin from the rough rocks and the impact but it didn’t last long. 

Gyro rose his head up and his emerald eyes widened at the sigh of [Name]’s body laying face-down on the ground. Pushing himself up, he started to crawl towards her but stopped part way, noticing the cracks running along her hands and the claws growing from her nails. Another low groan was heard, her body shifting as she tried to sit up herself and collapsed back down in pain; a series of pained groans and moans slipping her lips as her body shifted. 

Her jaw ripping open, revealing razor sharp teeth much like the ones Diego had, cracks running up and down her [Skin colour] skin; nails growing into claws made for slicing through flesh like a blade whilst a tail formed from her lower back. Gyro felt his heart stop at this, watching as his beloved [Name] transformed into something he almost didn’t recognise. She threw her head back, releasing a blood-curling screech that no human could produce and locked eyes with Gyro. 

Inhuman [Eye colour] eyes burning into his emerald ones. “[Name]... it’s me, baby.” he said, hoping that she would recognise him but the look in her eyes showed no such recognition. Only an animalistic hunger. She took a step towards him, her posture low and he read it easily, ducking just as she pounced and dodging her attack then darting off, [Name] hot on his heels. He threw a glance over his shoulder, seeing her jaws snapping dangerously close to his head. 

As he rounded a corner, a burning sensation struck his shoulder as her claws dragged across his muscle, slicing his flesh with ease and making him stumble. A pained groan slipped his lips as he clutched his injury; taking opportunity of his lost footing, the large reptile lunged, slamming Gyro to the ground. He felt something crack upon impact, earning another pained sound, as he claws dug into his flesh. Looking up, he saw the jaws of the dinosaur hovering close to his flesh, inhaling his scent. 

“[Name], please... This isn’t you, love.” His words offered no aid in his situation when he looked into the creature’s eyes. There was no trace of his lover in those eyes, his chest ached -not just from the force pressing down on his chest- at the sight of it. 

“Hey!” Both Gyro and the [Colour] reptile turned to the source of the voice to see Johnny kneeling upon the ledge close by, his hand outstretched and aiming at [Name]. “Come on, [Name]. I know you’re in there somewhere.” Again, Gyro tried to reach her, wanting to pull her back from the depths of whatever hell this creature had trapped her in before it was too late. A low, threatening hiss was heard as her attention shifted from Johnny back to Gyro. 

With a screech, her jaws opened and lunged down for Gyro’s throat. 

“[Name] no!” Before her jaws could latch onto the Italian’s throat, two holes ripped through her body and forced her off of him, a pained sound escaping her as Gyro crawled away slightly. Johnny aimed his Nail Bullets again when she regained her composure and turned to them again. 

“Don’t make me do this, [Name]!” Gyro’s eyes widened when she lunged again, his Steel Ball and Johnny’s Nail Bullets struck out at the dinosaur. Blood spilled from her wounds, flesh tearing as she collapsed to the ground. Even with those wounds, she tried to claw her way towards Gyro, that hunger still burning in her [Eye colour] eyes, still wanting to kill him as if it was the most important thing for her to do with her last breath. 

Her clawed arm outstretched to Gyro slightly, her eyes flickering with a pained sorrow that he recognised immediately. The reptilian form breaking down; scales shedding back into soft flesh, claws shrinking to nails and the tail also vanishing. 

“Gy....ro...” Weak and tired. That was the only way he could describe how she sounded at that moment in time. Gyro rushed to her side, collapsing to his knees and pulling her close, “I’m...so sorry...” she tried to force out as a thin trickle of blood slid out the corner of her mouth. Gyro’s hand held onto hers, fingers interlocking tightly yet comforting. 

“It wasn’t your fault, love. Don’t worry about it.” he said, trying to ignore the blood painting her shirt, “You’re gonna be alright, okay?” The guilt that carved her features made his heart clench. It wasn’t her fault, it was Diego’s. He could see the battle she was enduring to keep her eyes open; her wounds were not fatal but Gyro could not deny the image crushed his soul. 

He pressed a kiss on her lips, “You get some rest, okay? I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.” She only just managed to give a small nod before her eyes fell shut, her breathing remaining shallow but present. Something burned inside of Gyro as he carefully picked his lover up and began to make his way to the house again. 

He was going to find Diego and make him pay for what he did to his beloved [Name]. How could someone do something as twisted as this to such an innocent soul?

[sour-badger]

Art style challenge: reflection

So, during this very challenging months and 3-4 weeks of social distancing I was stuck. Drawing became boring and I was in state of stale purgatory and it was annoying me. However, my sate of monotony came to a halt whenever I watch “Cheer Up!”, a show/DnD campaign created by Wrapped Lamp that was set in the world of JoJo, but in a bleak setting. It's wonderful, and the characters are brilliant. (This a link of the first episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVF6ShkYqU0 )

As I was watching the show I decided to challenge myself, I have never drawn in Hirohiko Araki’s style before. I have never tried to draw like that because it is a simple but complex approach to illustration that is very hard to draw, let alone replicate, but I tried and I proud of the results. So because of this I set myself some rules:

1. The illustrations must be based on the player/character icons in “Cheer Up”

2. They must look like protagonists that could be in the anime but are not copies of existing Jojo characters. (Because that's cheating)

3. Each illustration must be done within 3 days. (A personal thing for me, I get bored of drawing the same illustration for more than 3 days, if you want try this you don't have to follow this rule)

With these rules, Photoshop and google images by my side I was ready. And this is how it went!

 (I am putting each reference of every character in groups of eyes, face, hair and body because I had to to a lot of research for this style, I have put the main influencers down there were more but are not important)

My process 

At the start of all my attempts I create a beginning sketch of original icons. I am going in blind so doing this shows me how they created it without tracing it, sort of like life drawing. I then made a rough line drawing to see what the design looks like without making it official. I sometimes draw a second outline to figure out the details and then I compose the final line work but I also have the original art, the many characters in Jojo Bizarre Adventure and real life examples at all times. Paint the hair, skin, clothes and then create the shading and then they are done.

The first sketch 

rough line work

The final outline with the shading

I also chose to try not to use part 3 as reference material. I personally dislike  the seasons animation and character design. I don't know what happened in that season but they look terrible. It took me 3 tries to finish Stardust Crusaders and the art work was the main reason.

  The Characters  

Isadora 

Played by jay (Stabbyness)

Isadora was the first character I drew. I chose her because the next live “Cheer Up” episode was in 3 days and with that time I decided to give myself a fighting chance by drawing her first (I find women easier to draw than men).

With Isadora I had to also decide what Jojo season they would be in from the start, I wanted consistency because they are the protagonists. I decided to do a mix of part 4 but was mainly based in part 5. For me I liked the colour shading of part 4 but loved the structure and graphic style of part 5. This made shading and highlights easy and consistent.

Because I had never drew anything like Jojo I had to use multiple characters as a frame of reference, (I did not copy the originals, if I did then there would be no point of doing this challenge in the first place). I thought it would be good to show how many characters I referred to to help with this process.  

Isadora was the easiest to draw out of the 4. She has a traditional female design, her only challenge was her eyes. As the first one this one was done in time and and looked good at the time. However now that I have got the hang of drawing in this style I want to redraw her again to show myself how much I have grown during this challenge.

Characters that i used for art style reference

Eyes: Trish Una, Narancia Ghirga and Yukako Yamagish 

Face: Trish, Erina Pendelten, Yukako

Hair: the whole part 5 crew (I had know idea how draw Jojo hair at this point)

Body: Joylne Jostar, Yukako  

 Donna

Played by Will (bigmovingtarget)

Donna was the hardest overall draw. She is a wonderful character but she does not typical female build. She is a MMA fighter, a tattoo, wears a hoodie and jaw that could cut glass. This created some problems, Araki characters rarely wear hoodies and his female characters are not normally drawn with strong features, they don't ever have a massive tribal tattoo. Also Araki’s female cast have a very small range of hair styles so I had to look at the male cast for inspiration and information because donna is an unusual design!! 

Her tattoo was very difficult and I was in a pickle for the whole first day. The original icon has only a few red marks on her face and the thumbnail of “Cheer Up!” (created by Six) depicts Donna with her back to the camera and looking with side of her face without the tattoo! 

This was driving me crazy.

In the end I had to reference real life tribal tattoos and the famous tattoo  from the movie “Dusk till Drawn”. I like the result. 

Her hoodie was also an unusual problem because I couldn't find a single character in the cast sporting a hoodie at the time of drawing her. So I wanted to draw her with a hoodie that the cast would wear. So when I was looking at fashion editorials I found Billie Eilish wearing the perfect hoodie and had to try to replicate it. (Elle 2019 interview, just incase you want to find it. Its the red coat!!) I also referenced part 1 and part 2 for her body because the those characters where drawn to fight, they are not frail and fawn like in appearance and think that is perfect donna. 

Characters that i used for art style reference

Eyes: Josuke Higashikata, Yukako, Lisa Lisa and Gyro Zeppeli 

Face: Gyro, Jolyne and Lisa Lisa 

Hair: Enrico, Yoshka Kira, Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli and Koichi Hirose

Body: Lisa Lisa, Gyro, Leone Abbacchio and Jolyne

Jack 

Played by Christian

Jack was easy to draw because he looked like a Jojo character. Like Isadora, Jack has a typical male design for Jojo. This meant I had a pool of reference material for him and had finished him in 2 days, the only real problems where his hat, stubble and jewellery. Lucky most of Araki’s cast have jewellery and chains and Jotaro Kujo has hair as a hat! Jack was heavily based on Jotaro Kujo but I made sure that he wasn't a copy! 

Stubble...stubble doesn't exist in Jojo.

Jojo’s Bizzarre Adventure has magnificent beards or clean shaven men, and sometimes they have facial hair. This was the main issue with this character because with stubble you don't have Jack.  So I had to take the beard of Joseph JoStar and looking at real life stubble finally got his lovely 9 o'clock shadow that we have now. 

 Characters that i used for art style reference

Eyes: Joseph Jostar (part 2), Jonathan Jostar 

Face: Leone, Jotaro Kujo and Burno Bucciarti 

Hair: Jotaro and Robert E. O. Speedwagon

Body: a mix of the cast of part 5 with a little bit of Johnny Jostar (like Isadora)

This one was the start of really using real life as a reference. Although really started using them in Donna illustration, drawing men has always been a challenge for me so drawing from real life actually made it more like Araki’s style. I realised that Jojo art style is based in realistic body proportions. I honestly think that this looks better than the other 2 because of the life drawing I had to do.

JJ

Played by Arimnaes

This was the last Icon I had to draw. I left this one last because I needed the practice to give this guy any chance of working. 

his face and body were not the issue because most of the main casts (in their respective seasons) have similar features but slightly different body heights and proportions. However, JJ’s hair was a difficult.

 In my research I found a total of 2 characters that could have his ethnic style  or texture for his hair. They were Enrico Pucci and Muhammad Avdol, and no one else. This ended in failure because their hairstyles are wacky and imaginative and JJ’s dreads just flat out don't exist in the Jojo universe. If they have his hairstyle then I must of missed it because I wasted a whole day solely on research!!!  Anyway, after that that I looked at male braiding and box braiding to figure out the hair line. Although I had the hair problem with Enrico I personally loved his design, he was drawn with an attitude and I thought it worked for JJ.  

Characters that i used for art style reference

Eyes: Enrico, Bruno, Joseph, Gyro and Giono Giovanna

Face: Enrico, Muhammed Avdol, Johnny and Bruno

Hair: Giono and Josuke, 

Body: Enrico, Bruno and Caesar 

Reflection 

Although the process was difficult, I had fun drawing these characters and have gained new techniques in drawing that I struggled in the past. I can draw stylised shading, tattoos, clothes and male characters better than I could before. I also learnt that I can draw surprisingly quickly and had finished both Isadora and jack in 2 days. After this challenge i also gains a new appreciation for Araki and the show Cheer Up and the number of literal hours it must of taken them to create an immersive show. 

However now I have to find something else to do whilst being stuck indoors!