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Black Panther

Black Panther line art illustration (click image to enlarge)

Black Panther full color illustration (click image to enlarge)

Artist's notes:

The Black Panther illustration was completed on 6.14.2011. I had thought about drawing a Black Panther (which is really just a melanistic color variant of a Jaguar) but had avoided it, due to the fact I couldn't find any usable reference photos, and, working in stipple, it should take about 100,000 dots it was going to take some time. I devised a method to more quickly duplicate the dots, and the inking only took a day, and the tinting a few hours. The drawing is based on a photo by Salfordian

Information about the Black Panther:

Black Panther are not any unique species of cat, but rather a melanistic (an increased amount of dark pigmentation) of any of the large cats, such as the leopard or jaguar. They are not uniformly black, but in fact to have the usual spotting pattern just as normal, but the entire shade of the coat is vary dark, and in fact almost black. Black Leopards are especially rare, being found in usually only in some remote areas of the southwestern parts of China. For a long time, these big cats were considered a separate species of leopard and jaguar, until a better understanding of the different color morphs of animals was understood.