I’ve been meaning to send out a mailing list email this week for this upcoming chapter (planning to sometime today), and I also had the random idea last night (or this morning?) to try drawing a small graphic for the mailing list, in general. This would need a lot of refinement, but jotted down the quick concept – it’s my sylvari reaper, Landis, sending off his “Mini Oxidecimus the Shadow Raven” with a tiny letter affixed to its leg, carrier-pigeon style. Maybe I will try to finish this sketch for Halloween – this is my favorite mini from the game, and it’s part of the annual Halloween festival starting next month.
I also feel like sending a few work-in-progress images for chapter 3 of the comic to the mailing list today – these will just be for the mailing list for now. And, like Landis sending out Oxidecimus, this email to the mailing list will go out later today!
I have this sketch of Malyck I drew last year, which I thought the composition might look interesting, and which I just haven’t had a chance to get around to doing more with it since. Largely because I since decided to draw a comic with him instead of doing more paintings, haha.
I would still like to finish this drawing at some point, though – indulged myself a bit this week and worked on it a little more. Just a portrait crop, for now.
I might not have posted the original sketch here – I wasn’t using this blog last year – just in case, here’s the original sketch below:
Rough drawing/painting of Diarmid from Guild Wars 2The base drawing.
I’ve always wanted to do a study of Blademaster Diarmid from Heart of Thorns, because Carlyn Lim’s designs from this expansion are some of my favorite artworks from the Guild Wars franchise. Her concept designs for the “Nightmare Commanders” – which became the “Mordrem Commanders” in the live game – are some of the most inspirational designs from this expansion for me. They still stimulate my imagination for what the story for the underlying characters might have been! (Had they not been cut for time from the narrative!)
Edit August 13, 2025: Added the fullbody WIP composition!
Anatomy practice / Lorcan WIP | Lorcan with the “Onus” hammer skin
Anatomy practice! I’ve been practicing drawing anatomy construction from imagination this year, and this is one of those practices. So, please forgive me for any anatomical inaccuracies, as these are for practicing this type of anatomy construction drawing from imagination.
I’ve been having fun running around in the “Untamed” build for my ranger, which I never knew how fun a spec it is to play (mainly because of the amazing vocal lines Brandon Bales recorded for it, haha – but also the main “unleashed” hammer skill is so fun and satisfying!). It gives me an excuse to finally use my favorite hammer skin – “Onus” – which I’ve never used before because I haven’t enjoyed hammer skills on any character prior. I believe it is also a Halloween skin – so perhaps hopefully I can finish this drawing by this Halloween!
Here’s the full composition:
Full composition (in-progress)
I also figured out a better way to draw chains with this drawing – when I’ve drawn chains for commissions before, I made a chain brush. I was too lazy to find or recreate that brush again for this drawing, and this time I just drew them manually – but surprisingly, this ended up being both quicker than when I used to use that brush, and I also like the visual result more. I remember the chain brush I made always had this uncanny “too even” appearance, which I then had to spend time making the links look more organic.
With just drawing them with a regular round brush now, it naturally lends itself to an organic feel. (Of course, perhaps now it might be not even enough. Though between the two, my personal preference is a little too organic versus too inorganic or stiff).
And a few extra/earlier versions in the rest of the post below:
This is a very, very rough test – but contemplating adding slight animation to the final page of chapter 2.
I should probably be using fade/opacity transitions for this and not frames, but, I both don’t know how to do that in Krita (yet, if the function is there), and I’m also partial to frame animation to probably a detrimental degree, haha.
Edit: August 9, 2025
Practice frame animation (Unfinished)
Decided to practice a bit more with this (separate) test, and also widened the aspect ratio. I’m not planning on finishing this because it was mainly unplanned practice, and the way I set up the file is pretty messy. Mainly after the initial sketch, I made a layer and just drew on top of each keyframe – both the character and the background. This would probably make it too time-prohibitive if I wanted to try and fix every error and make the frames motion read more smoothly, haha.
Really fun to do though, and it gave me a good sense for how Krita’s timework works now. Should make it easier for me to add some small animation to Chapter 2’s final page at some point!
Anyway, earlier WIP versions in the full post below:
I’ve been meaning to send out a mailing list email this week for this upcoming chapter (planning to sometime today), and I also had the random idea last night (or this morning?) to try drawing a small graphic for the mailing list, in general. This would need a lot of refinement, but jotted down the quick concept – it’s my sylvari reaper, Landis, sending off his “Mini Oxidecimus the Shadow Raven” with a tiny letter affixed to its leg, carrier-pigeon style. Maybe I will try to finish this sketch for Halloween – this is my favorite mini from the game, and it’s part of the annual Halloween festival starting next month. 
