Friend or foe?

I recently started reading the first book of the "Redwall" series by Brian Jacques. I had never read it before but have always been drawn to books in which animals are the characters. I decided to take a break from portrait drawings and do an illustration based on my mental image of the story.

This moment in the illustration follows the attack of Redwall Abbey, led by the legendary Cluny the Scourge. Cluny's spy has recently stolen something from the Abbey which serves as a source of inspiration and identity-orientation for all within the Abbey. At this moment in the drawing, Matthias, a self-effacing yet fiercely loyal monk from the Abbey, is venturing to St. Ninian's Church where Cluny's army has setup camp to confront him. Along the way, he encounters Basil Stag Hare, a proud and elusive hare who offers his support.

I was first attracted to Jacque's description of Basil Stag as a "patchwork" animal. I'm not quite sure what was meant by that word but it gave me the image of a somewhat rugged creature. I wanted to use this drawing as an attempt to draw some animals and portray the two figures from two different perspectives (head-on for Basil Stag and from behind for Matthias). I've also been spending more time adding background details to my drawings so this one provided many different elements for practice, including a distant figure of St. Ninian's church, a dirt path descending over a foreground horizon line and continuing on into the distance, and various bits of forestry.