A little extra to this series. To break into drawing again after a bit of a summer break I choose to do another one of these for a backup character I still have on the bench.
Shimoko is a Master Archer and trained Diplomat of the Winter court of the Fey. Being drafted into a war her life took a turn when she died and was resurrected by a powerful wizard. Now severed from her court and only slowly remembering who she used to be, she is not quite sure yet what to make of her situation.
This one took about 4h… I initially left out the wings but then added them because well… character design. I think they clutter the background a bit too much for the portrait.
So, back in June I started this little project as just another one of those things you need to get over a bad-art-day. It served it’s purpose though it quickly turned into less of a “daily” and more of a “as-needed” strategy for me to get into the process and just start. I kept the rule set similar enough… I did generally not look back onto what I sketched before, but to determine when it was done I needed a new criteria… that ended up being: When the canvas is full.
What was important was that nothing needed to be anything… I just went with the flow. Still I really like some parts of this so… let’s get a little feature of those:
Tara and Gen during downtimeIs that a ruby dragon?Illya and Gen on watch or sthTHAT unicorn
Here we have Gen, my Divine Soul Sorcerer, and his familiar, Okuri. Both designed with a Genet in mind. For a multitude of reasons this one took me closer to 5 hours compared to the usual 3 but I think the whole “fear of finishing something and having to move on”-dilemma carries the biggest blame here.
I really liked how it turned out, which doesn’t stop me from seeing all the little things that are not quite right… cast shadows, over stylized lighting, Gen’s nose looking too normal… But those are things to fix in the next one… whatever that will be.
This was quite the satisfying journey, both in terms of the art that came out of it and the things I practised and learned through it.
This one felt like magic and I needed a good couple days to figure out why it took me less than 2 hours but I think I found the secret: There’s no humanoid face on here. No noses, no symmetry for eyes or ears or really anything at all because everything is in profile either way.
And though I had dreaded the whole figuring out feather textures thing, that one turned out to come quite naturally to me… So here he is: Aaracokra Druid Ciccerek, turned Ruby Dragon by virtue of… getting adopted.
That leaves only my very own Character, Gen, to go… and I am mildly horrified both by the dice having made him the final picture I make and… the prospect of being done with the project. I’ve streamed the first bit of the drawing process last Wednesday and will likely finish the rest tomorrow so… if you’d like to see come step by on twitch!
The next instalment of my portrait painting journey, featuring Celestial Warlock Fen and her Fenec Familiar, Edward.
Her Bangs might stand out a bit, because they were what gave me the most trouble, as I seem to increase the level of detail in these with every picture. This one also almost took me 4 hours in the end… But extra fluffy Ed was well worth that! ^^ Somewhere in the making of this, the utter mess of layers I needed to get the face right has a version where she just looks deformed and beat up and it still haunt my nightmares so I will spare you the sight.
Verden Campaigns very own Divination Wizzard, Illya and her dearest companion Nariraijin, or Raiji for short. Illya doesn’t look half as annoyed as she’d need to, but I think if she did it would break the calm vibes too much anyway so… she can have a moment of peace for now.
Challenge time! Feathers. I do like how they turned out and I would like to get everything else into a bit more of a loose style like them again tbh. I finished Illya on Stream yesterday and started working on Fen until trying to get her eyes in the right places started feeling like a futile effort…
If I don’t finish it on my own time that what next Wednesday’s Stream will be about.
To get into a habit of drawing more in general, I started the quickly abandoned project of Sketch Collages. A Wallpaper sized page full of loose (mostly photo) references, that I break down and then turn into pictures of the DnD Characters that fill most of the things that I share here. This was the first one I did, It focused on Expressions a lot, which is (as well as faces in general) something I need to get more practise with before I feel entirely comfortable drawing them.
Breakdown not included all of these seperate parts were done in half an hour or less and I feel like sharing these in the spirit of “not everything needs to be perfect”. Or finished… Or even good. I’m not the best artist out there by miles but people around me that want to be better at drawing still put me on a pedestal for what I can already do… Art is a strange thing is what I’m trying to say… I guess. We’re all always learning to be better at it.
During the few weeks of downtime Gen spent in the forest.
After a few weeks in Lazuli Gen decided to go and visit his sister at home. There were things they needed to talk about but that never came easy to them, even when they were among themselves…
The rustle of leaves was the only thing around them for a very long time. Small branches cracking and brushing against each other, playing their little song in the cooling breeze of nearing winter. Like so many times it was Gen who found his voice first, not for the words he wanted to say but sometimes any words at all were better than nothing. “Mouse Ears has grown so much…” He contemplated.
Fen smiled over at him. “The young ones all have.” She said and turned out to look through the gaps in the foliage. “The Oldest Wolf Paw is teaching her and White Tail to set the traps for small game.” She explained and Gen nodded along.
“We have, too, I guess.” He said with a sigh. “Huh?” Fen turned to him confused.
He hummed, contemplating his words for a moment. “I don’t know,” he started, “I feel a lot older, even though time here went faster than it did for us…” That was the best he could put it. A lot had happened. His last visit here was so brief, rushed in the pursuit of saving Erazil, that he forgot it happened most of the time. So maybe that was it… that it still felt like the last time he had been here had been before he left for Lazuli. And he had definitely grown since then. Fen, too, but somehow she still always felt the same. Especially when she smiled.
“I mean we have done a lot. Had a lot of fun and, well…” Fen said open ended.
“Adventure…?” He finished for her.
“Like old times…” She nodded, with a sadness in her eyes, that he didn’t quite understand.
“I missed that, too…” he said, trying to acknowledge the feeling, give her a chance to talk but it brought only another stretch of silence so eventually he just talked on, trying to get to what was on his chest.
“I missed Lazuli, too.” He said with a twitch of a smile. “I… “ He sighed and started again. “I found something out. That’s why I came here… mostly. To talk.”
“I know, you said that already…”
He knew, but putting some padding around the hard parts helped sometimes…He took a breath and cracked his neck, before he spoke again. “That professor from Kornear – I was lucky I caught him just before he left -” Gen knew that was irrelevant and forced himself to stay focussed. “He had an interesting proposal about my kind of magic…” Another pause stretched and Fen sat there legs dangling off the branch, while she listened, watched Gen’s hands gesture around. “His idea is that it’s not actually in the bloodline, but that they might be connected to a soul. Carried on from a prior life of sorts and…” Gen plugged a leaf from a nearby branch and started twirling it between his fingers. “I asked him whether such a reincarnation might pose a significant disruption of the natural order. And indeed if the soul was put there outside of it…” He sighed again, thoughts heavy with the realization he had been carrying around for a while now. “I think there is only more reason to believe that I am your curse.”
“You are not a curse.” Fen said adamantly, so sure that he almost believed her. “You’re my brother.”
He didn’t have the heart to look at her. “Yes,” he sighed. “As it seems I wasn’t supposed to be, though…” And that was the crux wasn’t it.
“That doesn’t change anything.” Fen insisted, almost angry, or as close as she ever got to that with him.
“I know.” Gen gave in, not able or willing to argue. “But it does make sense now… that I never fit here.” He unconsciously started picking the leaf apart, vein for vein as he recounted. “That your unicorn was reluctant to call it a curse. And the thing with the divine plane… If it is about this soul and whoever it was before…” His shoulders dropped. The thought alone that what was him now was someone else before, was never supposed to be him. “You’ll always be my sister.” He turned his thoughts around and turned toward her again. “Nothing will ever change that, but… I guess I’m just not sure what this means for me.”
Fen gave a nod, ever understanding, ever untelling what it was that made her look so gloom about all of this. She said it herself, it changed nothing. Not for her.
She was the one to stop the silence from spreading this time. “Are you gonna tell mum and dad?”
Gen had thought about that on his way here, about who should know in general. He shook his head and picked another leaf, to pick into pieces as he spoke. “Not Erazil either. He has been so obsessed with getting rid of that curse for you…” He left the sentence unfinished.
Fen’s voice was more scolding than reassuring when she said: “He wouldn’t do anything to you…” How could you even think that? It said, He’s our friend.
He was also trouble. As much as Gen appreciated standing with and not against the man. “Not intentionally.” Gen agreed, if only to appease Fen. “I… just don’t want him to stick his nose into this.” Gen tried to explain. But Erazil was not why he was here, he was a problem they would get to when it came to it. Another heavy sigh joined the many others lost over this whole dilemma. “I don’t know what I want to do about it… how to figure out what is going on. I think I would like to talk to your unicorn about it… If that’s ok?”
Fen nodded. ”Sure… I mean, I can try and talk to him to talk to you.”
It was a riddle to Gen how she could call that creature a friend, yet be so uncertain whether it would even show its face. “Thanks.” He said instead and plugged another leaf.
During Verden Campaign’s first big downtime there was one little occasion the crew got back together. Something we all in- and out-of-character had been anticipating ever since we were invited: The Fairy Ball held by the Winter Court. A Masquerade under the theme of ‘Creatures of the Night’. Thus of course everyone needed to dress up! And whether in words or picture all of us presented a new Outfit for our characters. Here’s what I came up for Gen (in a very last minute drawing spree, after agonizing over decisions too much):
The big event of the Ball was a Murder Mystery that kept us busy for most of it. We had friends to talk to and not so friendly faces to avoid… But after we solved the Crime and presented the Winter Queen our answer to be awarded a favour from her, we got to the calmer portion of the night. Dances were had and ever since out dear Dungeon Master had described that our Summer Fey Liaison had also decided to dress up as a Raven I had this picture in my brain that I needed to be a reality just because *aesthetics* !
And it happened. And then I was happy. And I still am even though it’s just a sketch.
About 3 years ago a bunch of strangers met on the dndbeyond forums united by the wish to play DnD and tell a story together. Many Forum threads never make it past that point but as you might be able to guess what ever luck (or fate =P) brought us together stuck around and we actually kept our group running. The story is to long to sum up in a short tale, we’ve dealt with Mindflayers and Dragons, befriended and antagonized some Fey, travelled through time and space and stumbled into places we had no business being in. So far only one of us died in a more permanent sense. But those are stories for another day, for now and in the spirit of sharing a bit of my art journey, I want to introduce my character: Gen. Here is the first design I drew for him:
small correction the age would be ~19.5 for a human
We started at Level 1. Gen and Fen, twins born to a big family of shifters in a magical forest, had been separated by Gen’s sudden magical giftedness and his will to explore it. He had gone to the Lazuli Archive, a school and library, to study magic and had graduated and taught there for a little while. He was about to leave for Skalvik when one day his sister just showed up and they decided to make that journey together. Shortly after arriving there, on a job that could have been like any other, they met the rest of the bunch and their adventure really started.
After helping our Druid, Ciccerek, find his mentor and then help him find his father, we all were bestowed a Dragon Boon… In Gen’s case: A fey Familiar. Much like himself, in a way, shaped like a Common Genet. On our way back we learned that Skalvik had started a war with the Mindflayer infested Kornear, and we decided to join the effort, one way or another. We plundered an abandoned lair and as we left stumbled into an ambush… unwilling to give up what they wanted from us and unable to come to a decision, Erazil hurled himself and the attacker onto the Astral Plane and left the party running, unknowing whether he was alive or not.
Erazil once gifted Gen a silver dagger, a reminder in the effort to get him back.
It was a long journey to get Erazil back, one that brought all of us to the Astral plane, in a circular line of events of cause and effect. Gone for barely 3 days we skipped half a year into the future and soon after had to say goodbye to Ciccerek who had his own journey from now on. It wasn’t long until all of us split up but before that, we me a new ‘friend’ and old acquaintance of Gen: Divination Wizard Illya. And as luck (or fate =P) would have it, we met her again as most of us reunited at the fairy ball, held by the winter court, everyone dressed up for the occasion of a Masquerade and its theme: Creatures of the Night. But that one is a Story for a different post. A few more months passed afterwards before another inciting incident would reunite us all again. And as is appropriate for a big time skip, I sat down and drew what is the most recent and most elaborate Character Sheet I have done so far:
This captures Gen as of Level 10. His familiar and the then Arcane Focus he was using: A Wand of Magic Missile (a gift from his Mentor back at Lazuli) with a Feywild Shard attached to it (itself a gift from our Summer Fey contact, Aurora). During the time skip Gen travelled a lot, he stayed in Lazuli for a little, visited his sister in the magic forest not far south of there and then, accompanied by party mascot, sabre-toothed cat, Tom and a horse he bought for the journey, made his way to the castle, they had been gifted and that had become home and lair of adopted dragon Ciccerek, up in the far north. There he tried to find some connection to the source of his magical abilities.
A lot of thing have happened since but they will have to wait for another post. What I think is apparent is that I have learned a few things over time, that the only minimally changed design of my dear Gen show off quite well. But I’m sure there is more to learn… and another Design update is not far away as the story progresses.
The only other finished picture of the set for the time being: Changeling Human Rogue Erazil, hidden behind his jester mask and his eight eyes raven familiar.
I’m going to have to get better at birds before I have to eventually tackle our Aarakocra Druid… but… lets cross that bridge when I get there. For now the sausage raven will have to do, because it was not the only thing that gave me trouble in this picture… I actually started this one before I did Mio, and I only finished it when I already had the basic sketch for Part 9 of the set down. Let me show you the version I first considered the final result until a friend unknowingly pointed out to me what was so off about it:
If you’re looking at this and are like… ‘well, I can’t see s***’ then you are thinking basically the same thing my friend told me. So, I stared at this for a while and then went at it with an adjustment layer for the values and tweaked and tried until I have the result I actually put up as the finished piece.
On top of that even just getting the shapes to look right on the mask was a whole process… so yeah… Erazil being a troublemaker in and out of campaign. I think that sums it up pretty well.
Except for Mio, which I choose to do early to complete the Meridiem part of the set, the order by which I went through the characters was determined by the dice, in true DnD spirit.
This one is our newest Verden party member: Satyr Echo Knight Iki, loyal ambassador of the spring court. Who definitely doesn’t have a crush on our Rogue, Erazil, and is just here to keep an eye on the guy. Iki’s design includes and is colour-wise inspired by cornflowers, so that was the new thing to figure out in this one. I’m not sure the specific kind of flower reads very well, but given that it was yet again the first time I tried doing those (as it is with many things in these) I think they look pretty enough. This one almost has that vibe of a graffiti mural you find on big empty building wally… or at least I feel it has.
It was pointed out to me that the horns are a little off, and in hindsight I agree… but I also think the (mediocerly textured) hair covers it up well enough to stay this way.
Next up in the line up, heart and soul and dedicated group mom of the Verden campaign: Halfling Grave Cleric Tara.
The pose might be a little to pious to be in character but I like to think it’s her not necessarily praying to her Goddess, but praying that the rest of the party doesn’t get themselves killed. I struggled with the profile view here quite a bit, but all in all I am happy with how it turned out, especially because the very harsh rim light going on was a totally new element to get right. I worked with a photo reference here that I do not have on hand any more.
Battle Master Nikatski, Axe-pert of the Verden Campaign and my failed attempt to go back into a bit more of a loose style of painting. Sadly he hasn’t been playing with us for a while so I was less motivated to spend a bunch of time on this one…
I still lack an understanding of how exactly the hair on this character works, but the beard was a lot of fun. Still, my least favourite one of the set, but I can live with that.
