Recently finished “Tier-2 style” commission for Skylark celebrating this year’s anniversary with their partner! Their DnD characters – Atticus in the back, a solider; Osiris up front, a sorcerer; and Pontos – Atticus’ trusty griffon!
Here the trio fly high above the skies, Osiris slightly hesitant at first, as he isn’t used to flight as Atticus and Pontos are!
Process images below, followed by a few detail crops:
Process Sheets + WIP Line Sketch
Initial sketches.Revised sketches after client feedback.Refining the underlying sketch before starting painting!
Detail Crops
Osiris, Atticus, and Pontos | Detail CropOsiris and Atticus | Detail cropPontos the griffon | Detail cropOsiris, Atticus, Pontos | Detail crop (slightly more zoomed in)
And let’s close the post with the final once more:
Below are a few process sheets from this commission (with client name omitted, as since this was from a while ago, I cannot quite recall whether this commissioner wished to remain anonymous).
PROCESS IMAGES
Initial Sketches | Process sheetRevised Sketch – Color Variations | Process sheetThe final painting once more!
I’ve been meaning to occasionally update this blog with some art I haven’t posted here before! Starting with a few Guild Wars 2 Tier 3 “speedpainting” commissions from a while back. These are 3 of my favorites from 2023!
The other reason I wanted to post these is because I took timelapses of several pieces from the 2023 batch of “speedpaintings.” I’m planning to post the timelapse for the first and third artworks in this post (the fiery charr and the confident-looking sylvari).
I recently finished editing the timelapse videos for those two, and will post them to YouTube soon. I’ll update this post when those process videos are up!
Guild Wars 2 “speedpainting” commission
I’m undecided about whether I’ll post the timelapse for the middle artwork (with the Ascalonian sword – one of my favorite weapon skins!), even though this is personally one of my favorite speedpaintings (I learned much about brushwork doing this one). I discovered while editing the clips that there’s a small portion in the middle that didn’t record. It’s very short, but it’s one of the parts I personally would want to see drawn (it’s when I draw the shoulder shapes), and I feel like it’s less interesting without this portion in there.
I searched all through my frames and sadly it is nowhere! It’s just lost. I’ll look at the video again to see if it’s still interesting to watch, but argh! I wish I had it there, because that one was so fun to draw, and I’d have liked to see that part drawn too.
I’ll again update this post with the process videos when they’re up!
April 1, 2026
Added timelapse video for the “GW2 Charr Engineer” Speedpainting.
March 30, 2026
Added timelapse video for the “Guild Wars 2 Guardian” Speedpainting.
March 25, 2026
Added timelapse video for the “Sylvari Engineer” Speedpainting.
Commission for Skylark finished for this past Valentine’s Day, as a surprise gift for their partner! Above is the mesmer virtuoso, “Tarcisio Chiavetta,” who is Damedarosa’s character! (Names mentioned here with permission.)
Above and below are detail crops.
Process sheets below!
Sketch 01: Initial sketch ideas.
For this piece, we began with a general range for the budget. I was given a fair bit of artistic freedom, and I offered to draw a series of thumbnail during the initial sketches, across a range of complexities within their budget. This way, the client could choose the idea which both appealed to them most, and matched their desired budget. The original sheet lists quotes underneath each thumbnail idea, which I’ve omitted here for the client’s privacy.
Sketch 02: Revised sketch, pose block-out
First-round revision after the sketch idea was chosen.
Sketch 03: Revised sketch, background block-out
Here is blocking out the background more before the painting stage began.
And here is the finished piece once more! This illustration has two versions – a “mesmeric magic” version at the top of the post, and this version above which places the focus more on Tarcisco’s figure.
Thanks so much again to Skylark for this commission!
I was reminded of the forum avatar projects I was part of back when I was an ArenaNet Creative Partner for Guild Wars 2. It reminded me that I don’t think I’ve ever shown the original batch of avatars I drew.
Much of these are older artworks – especially the ones before 2022. I remember this was a really fun project for us to work on as fans of the game. I’m still sentimental over a few of these because of this, despite some of them showing their age!
I’ve shown the second and third batches on socials before (but i think this is the first time for this blog, now that I’m using it again :D ) – the first and second rows in the image above. I remember posting those, and the original batch (2018’s) was so long ago, that I thought I had only done these 6. I only remembered I had drawn 3 additional avatars during the first time they ran this project, which I think I was only reminded of when I happened to see them being used on their official forums some time after.
The three forum avatars from 2018, including an extra alternate version which was unused in favor of the live version.
I don’t have the original files for the 2018 batch (at least not on my current PC), and found these when searching through my emails for when I submitted the files to ArenaNet. I completely forgot I had drawn two versions of Cadeyrn – which according to the email I wrote at the time, I apparently drew both because I couldn’t decide which to go with. The top version is the one which is used on the forums now, which I’m glad about as it’s clearly stronger as a sized-down avatar compared to the alternate option.
I do love Cadeyrn as a character, and since I didn’t remember I drew this at all, it was fun to see a new artwork of him I had forgotten about!
As of this post, these avatars are still live on their official forums. I still get a kick when I see them being used!
