#ardennaise chicken

[far-side-skies]

Happy new year everyone! Here's the lineup for December's bird OC challenge, with the Ardennaise Chicken. We've got an awesome variety this month, it was a really tough choice to pick a favourite.

Vote Here! https://strawpoll.com/polls/3RnYp2jJxye

General Blood Shrike of Cyclonia by @bloo-per

Arden, Talon Beastkeeper by @happypanda101

Hirundo Progne, Crystal Technican by @fubbick

Cassin Kingsmen, Knight of the Flying Dodos by @irishdove

Mercury, Waistland Raider and Cult Member by @uncertainty5

Lucky Ardennes, Squire of the Rebel Ducks by myself

Ardin Aise, Knight of the Three-Eyed Ravens by @grimm-the-6th

The vote will close on the 6th this month, and January's challenge will be out in a couple of hours. See you then!

[oneanimalpictureaday]

I think this is an Ardennaise chicken (they come with so many different colors) or at least a cross-bred version of it.

Fact from Breedslist :  After the First World War, there were mass importations of yellow-legged birds from Italy, with much higher laying capabilities, which posed a new threat. In 1922, selective breeding of Ardennaise began for better laying ability with some success. The Ardennaise was also cross-bred with the Leghorn variety, resulting in further decline of the former. The breed became almost extinct by 1940.

[uncertainty5]

I finally finished this at the last second. It didn't turn out the way I wanted but I think i've really improved at drawing with this one!

This is my entry for @far-side-skies Storm Hawks OC challenge for December. Based on the Ardennaise chicken.

Name: Mercury Age: 28 Occupation: Wasteland Raider and Farside Cult Protector Terra: Originally Gale but currently the Wastelands and other abandoned Terras Personality: Strikingly cold and deadpan. She comes off as sarcastic and cynical. She sometimes tries to crack jokes but they don't land due to her delivery. In battle she can go from quiet and unaffected to a blaze of fury. She enjoys collecting little trinkets she finds in the wastelands.

Her backstory is below

Mercury was born with the power to cause any crystals close to her to go out of control when she's upset and fire off at their full potential. Her father was an ex Cyclonian hiding out on Terra Gale before it was taken over. Her mother, according to her father, died long ago. When she was eight, her father remarried a women on Gale and the two had a son. She became jealous however and killed her father by accident when her powers went haywire in an argument.

After her fathers death her step mother and the other people of the village treated her poorly. Fearing her as a killer and a danger to everyone around her. She soon ran away and ended up in a Cyclonian prison mine. After her powers caused a cave in and she was presumed dead, she wandered the Wastelands until she came across a large crystal beast. One of a handful of creatures tied to the Farside as she would later learn. Her powers caused the beast to flee and chip one of the crystals on its body. After running away with the crystal she bumps into a mysterious man. He plans to kill her but changes his mind after he watches her use the crystal, called a time stone, in her panic. He offers to take her to his home and teach her how to use her powers.

Her new mentor is part of a group of people living in the Wastelands who believe they are ancient descendants of the Farsiders who first came to Atmos. They follow the old ways before the storms of Atmos created the terras and claim that their original home was lost to the Wastelands.

They live in a large structure buried under the earth and keep their existence a secret. Their current goal is to find the original site where the living storms of Atmos were created and to find an ancient artificial creature called the Beast of Time and capture it. A Farside creation and the same creature Mercury ran into. The only other crystal beast known so far is rumored to live on Tropica and be under the control of the Cyclonian royal family.

Mercury is given training due to her powers and trains with her time stone to master it. She hunts the Wastelands for supplies and the time beast. Killing anyone unfortunate enough to come too close or carrying something valuable.

She uses a crude scythe designed to withstand large amounts of crystal energy. Her time crystal allows her to slow time down for a little bit within a radius of a few meters and to see potential actions her enemies will take. With her attire keeping her hidden she often appears like a deadly ghost in the Wastelands. Giving her the nickname The Grim Reaper by the few survivors who've seen her.

[fubbick]

My entry for the Storm Hawks Bird OC Challenge: Ardennaise chicken is the December theme :) @far-side-skies

Name: Hirundo Progne

Age: 18

Terra: Coriolis

Occupation: Crystal technician but aspirating squadron member

Living in the most rural area of Terra Coriolis (Freshets Highlands) it’s hard to get crystal technology working properly, so Hirundo’s family take care of electricity systems based on crystal. They are Atmos’ electricians.

Hirundo works along with her parents, uncles, aunts, cousins and 5 siblings but are based on Velum, the “capital” of Freshets Highlands, where the population has a really particular ethnic identity that is different from the rest of Coriolis.

She loves her work and even if she’s not interested in crystal magic itself, she loves the technical aspects of electricity that crystals produce. But she also wants to form a squadron along with her friend Roc and his friends Garuda and Anqa. Only time will tell if this happens or if their lives will make them walk apart, because all of them need to work to sustain their families and the leaders of Coriolis aren’t interested in Freshet.

Thanks for read 😊

[irisarchborn]

Not sure I'll finish the full bodies in time, but here’s my entry for @far-side-skies monthly art challenge. This merry mouth we got the Ardennaise Chicken, and I choose to re-design another SH OC of mine with it’s wonderful colors X3.

🐔Info🐔

Full Name: Cassin Kingsmen Nickname: Cass

Terra Admirari Name: Ms. Hatter   Age: 35

Height: 5.7

Job: School Teacher

Crush: Edgar Skies (waiting for him to say something first XD)

Sexuality: Straight Birth Terra: Terra Rex (family immigrated there when she was little)

Current Terra:  Terra Admirari

Alliance: Free Admirari/ Atmos

Race: Atmosian (human)

Squadron: The Flying Dodo’s Rank: Sky Knight Weapons: Staff, Deck of playing cards 

Abilities: Crystal Mage 

🐔Story🐔  Cass and her family are originally from a French terra, but after their home/winery was burned down in a cyclonian air raid, they packed up what was left (which wasn’t much) and Immigrated to terra rex.

Growing up in the poorer part of the terra wasn’t easy for Cass as she was always teased and picked on by more well off children; not one to be easily swayed by them, cass continued to be positive and pushed herself to study have a good future for her family. Upon entering her teenaged years Cass had a part time job of tutoring younger children, which slowly led her to becoming a teacher later on as a young adult.

Two years later she bumped into a young man who was in training to be a skyknight for the terra rex guardians, His name was Flinn and the two fell in love a short while afterword then married at the age of 24.

The new life agistment took Cass some time to get use too, but it wasn’t easy as her husbands younger (by two years) brother, Harrier wasn’t such a big fan of her and would often voice this to her and rather then tell her husband Cass kept quiet about it so as to start anything; one evening Flinn overheard his brother belittling her and this lead to a fight between the brothers, Flinn being the oldest had the upper hand and ending up banning Harrier from his and Cass’s home until a proper apology was given. (I just imagine Harrier as a total stuck up asshole in his younger years, no hate on the guy though he does see the error of his attitude in the show) 

One year later the happy couple announced that they were excepting a baby, which later was discovered to be twins, news that both families were overjoyed to hear.

Course with each wave of joy and good fortune, a wave of darkness must come to even things out...This being the first battle between Atmos and Cycloina. Flinn and his squadron signed on with Lighting strike and the rest of the Storm Hawks. During the fight The Dark Ace killed the Storm Hawks and a few others, Harrier was almost on that list...Flinn had throw himself in front of his brother and traded his life for him.

News of losing her husband was a hard pill for Cass to swallow, being three months pregnant at time didn’t make easier, but of course they say death comes in threes.. a month later she miscarried and lost both her babies. After the funeral Cass fall into a deeper depression, no husband to hold and love and no babies to look forward she packed a small bag and left Terra Rex on her late husband’s skimmer. Flying in a heavy rain storm isn’t the smartest but cass didn’t care and she flew through the shivering cold rain that punched her numb skin, Eventually a bolt of lighting hit her skimmer which sent her to crash land on an unknown terra, she hit her head pretty hard and had a nasty gash too, as she blacked out cass prayed for death to take her and reunite her with Flinn and their babies.

Waking up from an Pneumonia /Head injury induced coma, Cass discovered the wonderland she’d landed on but had mistaken it for heaven at first, Only to see that she was still very much alive and this new terra was her new home now. Having no memory of who she was or where she’d even come from Cass was given the name Hatter by the red queen rather then being death at the chopping block.

Ten years later Ms. Hatter is teaching and gotten use to terra Admirari and her wounds had long since her crash had healed, only a few scares staying behind, she’d also adopted an orphaned Cheshire Cat child who Hatter had nicknamed Ches, made three wonderful friends who helped get her settled in down in the Clover District. Her old memories hadn’t really come back but once in awhile she’ll get real bad headaches, some so bad to the point where she will pass out from the pain they cause.

Not everything on wonderland terra is sunshine and rainbows, no it’s much worse and Hatter formed a squadron with her new friends and daughter to liberate Admirari and free it from the red queen’s madness. - End, hope you enjoyed that folks X3

[far-side-skies]

*posts this so quickly I break the sound barrier*

Holy crap I am cutting it close again. The holidays have been busy lmao

Name: Lucien 'Lucky' Ardennes Age: 17 (At Age of Heroes & Gale Force Winds) Occupation: Sky Knight squire Squadron: Terra Gale Birth Terra: Gale

A Sky Knight squire training under the Rebel Ducks, and a werewolf. 90% floof and feathers, 100% good pupper.

Lucky tends to keep their lycanthropy quiet outside of the squadron, as werewolves are frequent victimes of stigma and bad press in the Free Atmos. During their time in the Sky Knight Academy they made numerous friends, including a scrappy 13-year-old Aerrow. After being introduced to the rest of the Storm Hawks, it was Finn who dubbed them ‘Lucky’ because of their seemingly uncanny luck in finding lost things and totally not because Finn couldn’t pronounce Lucien properly.

[far-side-skies]

Storm Hawks Bird OC Challenge - December 2022

Hey folks! Once again, sorry for the wait on this prompt, but thank you to everyone for being patient.

Happy holiday month everyone, this month we're looking at chickens! As an homage to the three French hens from the song, we're specifically looking at the Ardennaise chicken.

The Ardennaise is named for the Ardennes region of France, and has experienced several periods of decline over the 1900s, but was successfully bred back into existence in the late 2000s. It was first described as a specific breed in 1882, at a point when it was already at a decline. A bantam and a tailless variant also exist, but are even rarer than the original breed.

I can't wait to see what people come up with for this one. Because of the delay in this prompt, the deadline this month is Saturday the 31st of December. And as always, the challenge rules and some extra images are included below the cut, including an optional colour pallette. Have fun guys!

Minimum requirements for drawn entries to be put in the winner's vote are a name, occupation, the character's home/birth Terra and at least one paragraph (or about 100 words) of written backstory.

Minimum requirements for written (i.e. written dossiers without art, or mini-fics for the character) are 500 words including backstory and appearance. Feel free to make a mini-fic out of this challenge, I'll make sure to link it with the final collage as well.

Entrants who are part of the Storm Hawks discord server will have the chance of getting a custom role for the next month! If you’re not part of the discord server, please ask for an invite if you’re interested.

You're not expected to create a character from scratch for this challenge. If you've got an older character concept that's been collecting dust or that you'd like to take the opportunity to revamp, feel free! The goal of this challenge is to inspire people.

Make sure to tag me in your entries and also DM me with a link to your entry. Tumblr is not always reliable about notifications for this sort of thing, and I don't want to risk missing anyone's entries, so better safe than sorry.

The group collage of entries, and the winner's vote are opt-in. Participation of those parts of this challenge are not mandatory.

The winner of the vote will receive a free sketch piece of their character from me.