If you think: 'Wow, big wall of text!', you can blame my internet provider. It decided to go offline my entire evening, giving me time to scan 10 (!) images and prepare 9 (!) of them for online (the 10th is not a drawing). When I'm typing this, my internet is STILL not online, giving my internet a downtime of 5 hours already.

Enough of the rant, let's go to this way, way overdue Reference of Ao!

Outfit 1: As we meet him, completely overconfident and in need of a reality check. He thinks he's beyond awesome and thinks Naraku is the only one worthy to become his wife (after only meeting her ten minutes; go figure). Luckily, hanging out with Naraku managed to give him some humility.
Not the best drawing of him; I like the one I made for the book better... but I haven't been able to draw him like that yet. His hair is too brown; it should be more reddish and a bit more ochre-ish. Yes, this reference shows a too dark colour. The perfect colour doesn't exist in Marker-land.

Outfit 2: Still too confident for his own good, but he gets an unexpected shock that confuses him like... well, it confuses him a lot. It confused him so much, Rain even called Ao prudish, while Rain is the most prudish of them all! But honestly, to think a girl saw you naked while all she saw was a bit of bare chest... *rolls eyes*.
Ao is also a weird guy; he doesn't mind his sister battling dragons, travelling to the other side of the world- as long as he knows where she is and with who she is. But to not know where she is and in which company honestly drives him crazy. He has a reason for that. He just never told his sister...
Btw, like the clothes. A Sushi-original, that's for sure!

Outfit 3: Originally, this was a green-brown outfit, but I honestly didn't like it. Accidentally, I turned it blue... and I like that. Ao looks good in blue, but I have way too much blue in my characters already XD
Did you know that the name Ao means both 'Green' and 'Blue'? It depends on the context, but in Ao's case, both names match. And seriously, the dude has a name that exists out of 2 letters. Try misspelling that!

Outfit 4: My least fav image. Ao turned into the local grumpy man, who can't seem to smile any more... or at least not that often any more. The pose looks bwech and the original image had messed up proportions. I tried to fix it digitally the best I could, but he still looks like a loser. And that while I like the outfit so much!

Outfit 5: Ao turned Bad*ss! Love the spear/axe/blade, which he sto- ehm, confiscated? No wait, he found it! Yeah, he did! He really found it! It was lying there, on the ground and no-one claimed it! Well, if it makes you feel better, he took it from a murderer. One that didn't hesitate to kill children. So, stealing an axe isn't that bad then XP
I like the clothes. Oh, and Ao finally has some energy to move on with his life... and then THEY decided to pop back in! Argh! Leave the guy alone!

Outfit 6: I made this to match Rain's and Kai's Season 6 outfit. I want to draw the three of them together; they seem to be some strange 3-unity or so. Ao is once again the grumpy man, but like stated in the stats: he holds a grudge. He can't forget.

Outfit 7: Not that certain, though I made this outfit to match an other one. Yes, he's smiling again and he's even confident again! And that grudge? Oh, he still has it, but he has something happy that overshadows the grudge.
I don't really like the front view look I made for him. I like the Outfit 5-image best, here he looks like a teenager.

Someone once told me I should be proud of my work XD I should be more positive. Partly I agree, but if I don't put my personal standards this high, I'd never feel the need to improve. Call me obsessive, if you'd like.

His ears are awfully perky though. It matches his confident nature, but Sushi's ears are way flatter. I tried making them flatter, but that didn't look good. But it annoys me- he looks double confident with these perky ears XD

Ao © Kitty Ocean/ Forever Young Eternity at [link]