Though she was created in 2009 like several of my other dragons, the first draconic Kinarii (or Kina for short) is the result of an amalgamation of things from years prior. Taking the name and color scheme from a cat character from the very end of 2007/early 2008 (who herself inherited the name from a RuneScape character) and the design of a personal logo done for a college class in spring '08, I blended them together into a new mascot dragon in February 2009. Her initial purpose was to serve as a new, recognizable mascot for deviantART and other places of online posting, as well as a guinea pig for honing skill. Like Moony before her, Kinarii found herself a subject of practice in many media.

However, coinciding almost exactly with the birth of this version of Kinarii was the meeting of the person who inspired the creation of the Gold Dragon. As such, Kinarii became as much a vessel for me to occupy and express the unexpressable as she was anything else. There was also a very distinct flavor to a lot of works featuring Kina that put more effort into stylistically reflecting my then-influences and general vibes and emotions than I had generally done in art before, despite my long history of emotion being a catalyst for art. She also heralded the beginning of my still-ever-present penchant for paper textures in my work and the earliest concerted effort to make or keep a traditional feel to digital art.

In spite of having only been in use for most of 2009 and only existing outside of that year in reference, Kina served her purpose well. She was not only drawn a lot in that time, but also took on additional non-dragon forms in art done with my friends in the Pokémon fandom. More than most of, or perhaps any, she spanned the gamut of expression from escapism to sorrow to joy and everything in between as she carried me through the year. She even had a claw in kickstarting my earliest foray into actually trying to world-build a character's universe, even if it never got past planning and some concept art. All in all, she was a cornerstone for many paths I ended up taking as an artist.

GALLERY

The earlier art of Kinarii tended toward those aforementioned paper textures or attempts at a watercolor style to go with the scanned pencil or ink drawings.



Another first, Kinarii was a major player in an attempt at original world-building for what was going to be a story entitled Second Sun, which was to be about her and the Gold Dragon, plus a few other non-dragon characters (Moony also cameoed as the moon goddess, Lunaea). With this I made more serious attempts at background art.



Kinarii was present for what was arguably my peak deviantART/forums era, resulting in several graphics.



I spent a lot of time on the PokéCommunity forums specifically in Kinarii's heyday, which resulted in alternate versions of her as a human and as a Larvitar, which were largely due to a friend's fondness for the gym leader, Roark, rubbing off on me for a brief time.



It wouldn't be one of my classic dragon characters if I didn't recreate her (or at least her color scheme) in IMVU and/or other web things. This time, though, there was less of it that I textured myself than usual, only a recolor of a hairstyle.


Here is some various Kinarii art that has appeared through the many years following 2009.