WIP Panel Crops – Nightmare’s Embrace | July 27, 2026

 

Work-in-progress panel crop showing "Lorcan" and "Caydren, two sylvari with a cool and warm color scheme respectively. Caydren looks enthralled by something off-camera, while Lorcan peers on more hesitantly.
Lorcan & Caydren | Work-in-progress panel crop from Nightmare’s Embrace

Small WIP panel crop from Nightmare’s Embrace I’ve been drawing recently – as well as, I soft-launched the info page for the comic last week, on July 22, 2026! I plan to retouch some of the artwork on it, as two of the profile artworks use older art (while the third is one of the paintover practices touched-up from last year), before sharing the page more widely. (That’s also when I’ll update the RSS.) In the meantime, the page in its current form is up at Landylachs.com/nightmare

In addition to the character profiles, the bottom of the page has a small gallery showing some of the various artworks I’ve drawn of the Nightmare’s Embrace characters from over the years. The art gallery is a similar layout as The Harbinger’s Path page index. 

Lorcan | Work-in-progress panel crop from Nightmare’s Embrace

Update about when Nightmare’s Embrace debuts 

I also have some new info about this mini comic I will probably wait a bit before mentioning it elsewhere, but I’ll mention first here for myself (and you if you happen to stumble upon it). The original plan for this comic was to complete it and then post it in its entirety on the Nightmare’s Embrace website. I would have aimed to do this by about the end of this summer. 

However, I learned an update a week or two ago that has changed my plans slightly. Now, I am leaning toward holding off posting this comic until at least after November – because this one I’m thinking of debuting it in print first instead, during a new event taking place this November in LA! 

Similar to Manga Ichiba, this event is the first time they’re trying it out. I’ll post more about the event in another post when I have a chance to organize the info more coherently, as it’s still pretty new to me. 

Comic Progress Update & Thoughts 

Slightly updated Lorcan art from the previous WIP.

I also think slightly extending my timeframe for when I wanted to post Nightmare’s Embrace will prove useful to drawing the comic, as it probably isn’t too surprising to learn I ended up adding several new pages that weren’t part of my original draft for this mini-comic. Right now, I’m prioritizing finishing the original drafted pages first, as they are the most important for the story – but when reading the original draft layouts, I noticed that there is some context that is probably clear to me but might be a little unclear to someone reading the comic without knowing who the characters are yet.

It’s been such fun adding these pages with additional context, as much of it covers parts of the characters that have been part of their backstory for a long time, but that I’ve never depicted visually before. It is also, as always, continually fascinating for me to compare how I draft new pages now with how I drafted pages from the original layout – those were originally started at least a year or more ago, now! I still marvel at how much longer those older drafts take me to “fix” compared with when I start a new page now. I wonder if it will often be this way when working on pages drafted a while back vs newly-drafted pages, or if it’s something that might equalize over time as my workflow for comic pages becomes smoother over time. 

Compared with The Harbinger’s Path, the drawing process for Nightmare’s Embrace definitely feels much smoother, and I am very excited about how it’s turning out so far! I still seem to prefer working on all the pages at once – this means that all the pages are in various stages of completion, instead of being drawn sequentially. This limits how much I can or want to show as I work on the pages, as most of it will probably be finalized at around the same time, instead of page-by-page. But I wanted to share something! And so this post was written. 

Profile artwork + Panel WIP’s 

I ended up starting to update some of the profile artwork – I’ll put the current versions along with the older versions for comparison in the full post below. The updates are on the more subtle side – you may likely need to flip between them to spot the differences. Also a progress WIP for the second panel afterward! 

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Lorcan Loose Ref – Nightmare’s Embrace | June 11, 2026

Loose drawing of a blue-toned sylvari ranger.

I’m at the point while drawing “Nightmare’s Embrace” (which I’m realizing as I’m typing this I should create a webpage I can link to, so I don’t have to explain what it is each time) where I can’t rely on my haphazard mix of different ref screens and drawings of my characters – at least, not if I want them to maintain a minimum semblance of design consistency. 

I didn’t have a solid design for Lorcan’s outfit until now, because every time I’ve drawn him I’ve done so slightly differently. Which is acceptable for paintings, not as much for comic pages. This is a loose drawing tonight to figure out which design I want to use for him in the mini-comic. 

I’ve been able to get away with loosely defining everyone’s outfits so far, because the main features I’m up to for most of the pages is still the general poses/panel clarity. And aside from screenshots, this older painting from 2024 has been my main outfit inspiration for “Lorcan,” a Nightmare Courtier from the mini-comic: 

Cropped painting of a Guild Wars 2 sylvari with a cool-toned color scheme.
Lorcan WIP | Painting Crop | 2024

This is a cropped WIP for a Lorcan painting I don’t think I’ve posted anywhere yet, mainly because there are issues with it I’d ideally like to fix first. But this painting is the closest to what I’ve been thinking about for his armor. 

His armor itself is most heavily based on the “Nightmare Court Guise,” from the medium Twilight Arbor armor set. Of course, I did some modifications, mostly for my personal enjoyment (haha). 

My only potential reservation with his outfit at the top of this post is – during the main part of the mini-comic, Lorcan is a “recently-turned” Nightmare Courtier. He might look slightly too fancy, for being “recently-turned.” I think I can remedy this fairly easily by shortening some of the features of his outfit (mainly the waist skirts and forearm thorns/branches).

But I’ll try this version out first in the mini-comic drafts, and see how they look. 

I also started the ref by drawing Lorcan’s underlying anatomy first – I’ll add it in the full post below: 

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Duskbirds Diorama Illustration (WIP) | March 7, 2026

Illustration of a "duskbirds" structure drawn in a diorama-like style.
Duskbirds Illustration | Work-in-progress

I was chatting about PLCAF with my friend, and remarking about how my table is likely going to be more bare than the average. She then suggested I bring a few prints, which I hadn’t considered. I’d only been thinking about potential books/mini-zines I could bring, since this is an indie comics convention. 

I then went looking in my files for potential considerations, and remembered I have this Duskbirds-related illustration I’d started a while back. It’s about 90% finished. I could likely take it to a polished state this weekend if I carve out the time for it. 

I also realized among the many Duskbirds comics I have noted down in sketch form, I had started 2 a while back that are about 70% of the way there. Contemplating finishing these for the mini-zine – as I tried out using color for these two, and I think they went in an interesting direction for the comic. But I also have to by wary lest my ambition reach further than the reality of my capabilities (or of logistical time constraints). 

Anyway! Need to format the books first – that’s the main priority. Aiming to submit the print order this weekend!