I can finally show this commission! :D
I wanted to also show a few detail close-ups; I’ll update this post at a later point, when I have time to crop and export those!
For now, two three WIP process pages are below. Some text is omitted, as aside from Achyrd, the rest of the characters for this one wish to remain anonymous!
January 15, 2026
Super rough Cadeyrn warm-up! I’ve been wanting to sketch the ending portion of Ree Soesbee’s “Dream and Nightmare” passages, particularly the final one describing Cadeyrn after he’s founded the Nightmare Court. The specific portion reads:
Cadeyrn lounged on his throne with a careless, prideful slouch. A crown of golden vine glittered on his forehead as courtiers bowed and whispered before him, hanging on Cadeyrn’s every word, their eyes as lightless as the space between the stars.
— Source: Dream and Nightmare by Ree Soesbee
I love the imagery this passage depicts, and it’s been on my task list for a while to try sketching some ideas based off it. This is my second (very loose) attempt. Below is the full, uncropped (and very rough) composition:
I thought it might also be fun to play a little with Cadeyrn’s design, namely his outfit. I’m not a huge fan of his in-game armor, but I wanted to try something that is still recognizable as having that as its inspiration (for comparison, this is Cadeyrn’s in-game appearance). I really like how in the Nightmare Court outfit series of armor, there’s a mild sense of lasciviousness, or this air of seduction, which works thematically with their concept of corrupting (or “seducing”) Dream sylvari to Nightmare.
I also thought it didn’t quite make sense that Faolain (the canonical leader of the Nightmare Court) wears Nightmare Court armor, while its founder wears low-level sylvari cultural armor. From the Grove, no less! This never made sense to me, given how arrogant Cadeyrn is depicting in Ree Soesbee’s writings. (I imagine he might likely have disdain for anything associated with the Grove.) But I do love when concepts are created based off in-game appearances – it’s why often, my favorite games to do fan art for tend toward those with lesser graphics. Because these allow more freedom with how artists can imagine their depictions, and allow more creativity and play among different interpretations across a variety of people.
That’s the idea behind his alternations here – I tried combining features from the sylvari male version of the Nightmare Court light armor (as Cadeyrn is a mesmer) – mainly by opening the chest, and changing his collar armor to thorns instead of leaves – while attempting to keep the “spirit” of his in-game appearance intact.
Incidentally, the first sketch I tried was from two days ago, sketched as an even looser warm-up:
There are aspects of this sketch I also like. I’m not sure which version I’ll take further – it might be neither, maybe I’ll try a few more ideas! – but it was fun to finally sketch down some potential tries for this idea.
Finally, the first sketch is also part of one of the “sketchpages” I use for warm-ups – this is how the full page looks:
This page started as as warm-up with Corveil first, on the right, as some anatomy construction practice.
Happy New Year! I have so much I want to post, but those will take me a little more time to write (I’ve had very little time in the start of the new year, though some exciting news to share later!) – I wanted to post something quick in the meantime!
Work-in-progress drawing of “Spellweaver Caydren,” one of three main characters in the “Nightmare’s Embrace” mini-comic I plan to finish this year. Caydren is a Nightmare Court elementalist. I have always enjoyed the idea of the thorned vine whip weapons Nightmare Court NPC’s in the GW2 game use, and that I don’t believe are accessible to us as players (though it’s been a few years, correct me if this is no longer the case) – so, what better reason to vicariously enjoy this, than by fitting one of my characters with one in comic form? :D
This drawing is from several months ago, and I had hoped to finish it by now, but other projects have been arresting my time. I felt like showing its current progress for now, instead! I plan to finish this one, though in some ways it is mainly a “concept drawing,” to see how he looked with the horned vine whip.
A Guild Wars 2 commission for Kyris finished earlier this month! This was an especially fun one, as Kyris asked me to try a commission in the style I’ve been drawing for The Harbinger’s Path webcomic. I’ve grown to love drawing in this style over this past year, but hadn’t thought too much about potentially doing it on commission. I’m grateful to Kyris for suggesting it, as I’m pretty pleased with how this style turned out in her drawing!
I’m especially happy with how Akoni’s face turned out. I think it is one of my favorite feminine faces I’ve ever drawn!
A few process images below:
Thanks again to Kyris for commissioning me!
Edit: A few more versions:
I’m not sure if I prefer the earlier version to these. I started painting over in the earlier version, and in this version, I tried tinkering with the lineart layer more. I’m leaning toward this version because the drafting has a better foundation here.
Original post below:
Small sketch of my Guild Wars 2 reaper/necromancer.
I can’t believe it’s December already! A month or two ago, I was expecting December to be on the more relaxing side. But what’s tended to happen every year now, is it inevitably becomes filled up with various events as the year draws to a close. I’m hoping I can still finish the progress on the personal projects I wanted to do – which is mainly the page updates for The Harbinger’s Path comic.
I was out of town for about a week in November, and I was originally sightly concerned I’d have to put the comic updates on a hiatus for about 3 updates’ worth. I learned I’d be heading out of town a little on the later side, and I scrambled to finish about 3 pages a week earlier than I had originally scheduled. These were pages 15 – 17.
Once I learned of this trip, I drafted a schedule for how much time I had and how many pages I’d have to finish to be able to still continue with page updates while out of town. I was leaning toward announcing a hiatus for that week/those pages, but to my surprise, I was able to finish the pages early. This makes me think I’m probably too lenient on myself when it comes to project management for my personal projects when I haven’t hard deadlines, haha.
Anyway, with all the new events that are now planned for December (mostly holiday-related irl ones), I am hoping I will be able to still keep my intended schedule for this chapter’s updates. But December has a good deal more going on than November did – which isn’t surprising, and something I should have anticipated earlier than now. I am slightly wary that I might have to actually do a small hiatus this month. It’s still too early to say, but I don’t want the quality of the pages to suffer if time truly becomes an issue.