DnD Tiefling Character Design (In-progress) | April 17, 2025

Sketch of my in-progress male tiefling DnD character design | A tiefling stands next to a pointy rock, flames encircling his hands, and emanating from the base of his dual-tipped horns.
Sketch of my in-progress male tiefling DnD character design

A friend is interested in doing a practice run of her own DnD campaign, and asked if I wanted to join. I haven’t done something like that before, but I said sure! She said think about which character and class I wanted to play as. I said I’ll get back to you!

After paging through the very long play handbook she said to use as a guide (I believe it’s the “2014 5e” version), I suspect it’s the hipster class, but I decided Tiefling looked the most fun visually to me. I’m still undecided on class, and tried sketching him to see if it might help me decided. Though the fireball there is mainly to signify that I think I want him to be a spellcaster, and not necessarily a fire-wielder. He’s also very loosely based on one of my existing characters, though I don’t think I have a post of him here on the sketchblog.

Anyway, for his DnD version, I’m leaning toward either Wizard (maybe “Enchanter,” “Illusionist,” or “Necromancer”) or Warlock (“Fiend” patron), and to a lesser extent, Sorcerer (though I don’t think I like the randomness of this class, from what my friend told me about it).

My being still undecided on class is why my tiefling there is still without an outfit – though I guess I could have put him in some type of cloth garb since I know I want him to be a light-armor/magic class. Well, I also won’t say no to practicing drawing male anatomy, haha.

Close-up
Close-up

Close-up of the sketch.

Geissler Concepts (In-progress) | March 11, 2025

Geissler design concept. A male kemonomimi character stands in a display pose. His color scheme is light browns, orange, and teals.
Geissler design concept.

I’ve been meaning to try some different designs for Geissler for a while – here’s a recent attempt! I’m not sure if I’ll finish this one, but it felt good to draw him again. The “in-progress” of the title refers to the design – he’s meant to have an accessory by his wrist, and probably sandals with some sort of leg wraps. But, since I’m not certain whether I’ll finish this drawing or do another one with the design, I wanted to post it as-is for now! 

Flat colors.

Geissler’s previous design was much more monochrome – essentially dark hair, dark or gray eyes, pale skin. I have a lot of characters with darker-toned hair – including the character Geissler is meant to foil – which is another reason why I wanted to explore a potential redesign. So, here I tried adding more color to him. In the image at the top of the post, I brought back some of that monochrome aspect, by darkening his hair and subduing the color contrast – which I’m not sure whether I like yet or not. Hopefully seeing it here on the blog will help me with deciding which fits him best!

Looking at him now, I sort of lean toward going with the lighter/redder tones.

Trahearne Sketches | March 7, 2025

Trahearne line sketch.
Trahearne line sketch.
Light colors added.
Rough colors.

Trahearne sketch ideas (character from Guild Wars 2).

The idea was, I wanted to see how Trahearne looked if he held Caladbolg in the “modern fantasy” greatsword style, where the weapon is slung (probably impractically) over the shoulder. I suspect (though could easily be mistaken) this pose was once popularized by FF7’s Cloud Strife player character, and has since become a standard fantasy pose. I think GW2’s in-game male humans and norn also take inspiration from that pose, instead of the more practical carried to the side, as GW2’s in-game male sylvari characters wield them. Incidentally, this was one of the early things which endeared me to my male sylvari character – and eventual new main – over my original female charr main.

While I cannot help but think the pose is impractical whenever I see it, there’s no denying it looks slick, in an anime sort of way, haha. It admittedly also probably looks more practical in this case, as I made Caladbolg smaller than I would have otherwise, to fit in the composition. If I take this further, I’d need to push Caladbolg’s perspective more, to appear its proper size.

Earlier versions, plus a rough color test.

Black and white line drawing of Trahearne from Guild Wars 2, drawn in a loose or sketchy style. Random Trahaerne sketch from last week. I think it became unintentional practice for the sketch from this week.

With support from ArenaNet.

Corveil Color Sketch + Enviro Thumbs | March 6, 2025

Had a potential idea today for the Corveil sketch from February 20, 2025.

And a rough thumb of a vague idea I had one of the mornings earlier this week, and forgot about until this morning. Only this time, I sketched it down quickly before I could forget it again!

It’s probably difficult to make out to anyone other than me – it’s Corveil and Arquel on a boat, floating down a river in a misty mire.