Nightmare Court Necromancer Sketches | January 31, 2026

Drawing two hairstyles from the in-game options to figure out which look might fit the character (Animated).

I’ve been idly wanting to figure out a look for a new Nightmare Court necromancer character I’ve been thinking about recently. He’s in the same setting as “Nightmare’s Embrace,” but isn’t a major character (he likely won’t feature in the mini-comic later this year). Different from my existing sylvari characters, the idea for him arose from a short story I was writing, instead from one of my existing in-game characters. My other sylvari characters originated from their in-game versions first, with their personalities developing afterward. Oftentimes, influenced by the experience playing them in-game. 

I haven’t made a new GW2 character in a long time, and thought this was the perfect excuse to create a new one. I played around with the in-game style options the other day, and thought drawing them might help me decide on this character’s look. I think the color scheme is close – especially for the hair and glow color – but I’m not entirely satisfied on his hairstyle. The two here are the closest I was partial to for him, but I’m leaning toward sketching a few ideas at a later point not based on an in-game style, to see if I can figure out a look that fits him more closely. 

Line drawing of a sylvari showing two hairstyles from the game. Left shows a short hairstyle with broad leaves. Right shows a long hairstyle with numerous small leaves.
Lineart sketch.
Same drawing as before, only the right shows the lineart sketch, while the left shows the color sketch.
I just liked how this version looked.
Animated gif showing the pulsing glow of a sylvari with long hair. The glow is warm orange, his hair a dusky, reddish-violet.
Animated version of the hairstyle on the right.

I also tried out animating the glow color to see if it would help me decide on whether I liked either of these hairstyles for the character. Between these two, the one on the right fits him slightly better, and I think it turned out better when animated.

But doing this helped me decide I don’t think I will be satisfied with either hairstyle for him. 

Still of the animated version from the top of this post.
Still of the animated version from the top of this post.