The man appeared out of the underbrush, right in front of her. The abruptness of his appearance was nearly as startling as the rest of him. The man was large and looked like some kind of huntsman, particularly the sort that had read about what huntsmen should look like in a magazine. He was carrying what might be a butterfly net, except it looked like it was made to catch the kind of butterflies that rampage through cities and do battle with large lizards.
What was most alarming was his hair. It grew in all directions out of his head in clumps that seemed to move of their own accord. As he moved his head, it seemed to follow a fraction of a second too late. The overall impression was of a large frightened cat on the top of his head. The bits of his face that managed to escape from his exuberant facial hair were ruddy and slightly tanned. The man spent several minutes standing in the path, sniffing the air and examining the underbrush distractedly. Eventually, this inspection brought him round to see her standing before him.
“HAVE YOU SEEN IT? IS IT HERE? DID IT FLY THROUGH?!?!”, he inquired in a loud and hearty tone, while continuing to survey the seemingly empty trees.
“Er, seen what?”, she managed to squeak out as she stumbled backwards, since being in front of him while he spoke was like being in front of a firehouse.
“The OWL, dear lady! Tiny chap! Wings, Big eyes, brownish plumage. Cheeky way about him. Hard to miss!!”, He gesticulated wildly as he described it. As he was speaking, a tiny brown bird, which may have been the creature in question, fluttered out of a nearby bush to settle on the strange man’s shoulder. He didn’t appear to notice.
“Ah…er. That owl?”, She stammered and pointed to his shoulder. The man swung his large, fuzzy head to look at the bird and his face broke into a grin.
“THAT’s THE CHAPPY!” He patted the bird and fastened a tiny chain to its leg, before turning conspiratorially to her and adding, “He’s a real escape artist, this one. Almost impossible to keep! But I’m not called the best for nothing!!”
“Er..and what is it that you’re the best at?”, she whispered and then stepped back slightly to be out of the main blast of it.
The strange man grinned and handed her a business card. It was almost completely blank except for a small picture of an owl in a cage and the words, “DAN RODRIGUEZ: OWL KEEPER” neatly printed in the center.
—————-
So several years back, at new years, there was some kind of trivia game from whence came the title (for one of my friends) “Dan Rodriguez: Owl Keeper” and I drew a tiny picture for his fake business card. For whatever reason, I’ve been thinking about how to make The Owl Keeper an actual character and I had a brainstorm the other day and had to get it down. Also I really need to practice painting semi-realistic people in photoshop. Mostly this is just a doodle, but now the idea of the Owl Keeper is kind of lodged in my brain and may take more than one doodle to get rid of him. I sort of imagine him as a combination of over-eager sportsman and park ranger, and probably the reason he’s “the best” is because he’s the only. But this doesn’t occur to him- the owl keeper has a bit of an ego about him. So when people ask what he does, he replies that he keeps owls. What this means is anyone’s guess.
I think he just collects lots of owls and trains them to do things. Or tries to anyway. I can just see him trying to have tea with a great horned owl, a buffy fish owl, a barn owl and possibly some screech owls. Hmmm…
(photoshop cs3, 2010)
