My Spanish pirate character, Talbot, and his faithful companion Noah (the African grey parrot), enjoying some of their recent plunder.

This is quite an outdated picture of them both, but I haven’t drawn them in a long time (they are, unfortunately, characters that primarily waver in my imagination, as they have no real purpose), so I still regard this as one of the most detailed drawings I’ve done of them. They sorely need some development, both of features and clothing, but until I get the spare time, this is good enough.
They, originally, were characters from a project I had been working on, based on anthropomorphic pirates (back then they were rather cartoony looking), but that project has long since been discarded, so only Talbot and Noah remain.
Not much is known about my character Talbot, as he has only ever featured in one of my full colour artworks, so a little background information won’t hurt.

Talbot is, in essence, a hybrid of sorts, part dog and part fox (a ‘seadog’… geddit?) and primarily Spanish. He’s very much a mixture when it comes to his influences too. There’s a bit of everyone in him; 'Calico Jack' Rackham, Errol Flynn, Cary Elwes, Clark Gable (he has his moustache), Antonio Banderas (I’d imagine him to have the same voice), as well as, yes, perhaps now, Jack Sparrow’s sense of cunning... and me of course (I gave him my hair, jewellery and bandana). When it comes to his clothing, he wears all the ‘traditional’ pirate garb and I wanted it so that his colouration would match that of his parrot (that is to say, light grey, white, black and red), because they are never far from each other. Talbot’s true name is Talbot Tarrington, but he is known by the name of ‘Red Jack’, after the crimson skull tattoo he has on his left hand and captains a nifty little sloop named the ‘Solitaire’. In my notes, I referred to him as being ‘a skilled sword fighter and good swimmer, sly, nimble and always grinning like the Jolly Roger. He cheats at cards, is rather cocky and tries it on with the ladies’. Yup. Everything your classic pirate should be... Oh yes, and highly romanticised!

Btw, I really do feel like I’ve been neglecting Talbot a lot. As I mentioned before, I haven’t drawn him in a long time, so maybe soon I’ll put aside some time to fiddle around with his design. One thing’s for sure though… I’m never going to make him lose that moustache!

(Image © Leona Preston 2004)


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