Yesterday’s page of The Harbinger’s Path shares similarities with the earliest Trahearne art I ever painted – which made me want to scrounge them up and post here! I probably never posted them on their own to this blog, though they are in the Trahearne & Malyck compilation archive (which as of this post, is a bit out of date/hasn’t been updated for a while).
These were both painted in 2015 – the top one started in August, and the one below November 2. I only know this because I usually include the creation date in the filename, which I’m glad I did here, because otherwise I would have misremembered the bottom drawing as older than the top drawing. They were also both initially WIP’s, but I ended up starting new projects with him instead of finishing these particular ideas (which you can see in that compilation archive – as well as this year’s comic project!).
One of my favorite ways to imagine Trahearne is how his travels and studies in Orr might have gone. This is one of the most interesting aspects of his character, for me, and I think it’s partially because those adventures of his weren’t explored in-depth in the story. Which makes it great fun for us to think about what experiences he might have had!
These earlier paintings leaned heavily into his “scholar” background, as from what I remember, this was emphasized more during the sylvari personal story – I started playing the game in 2014, and didn’t play the sylvari personal story for several months afterward – so these drawings are heavily influenced by playing the Zhaitan arc relatively recently.
Additionally, if you recall, Heart of Thorns released October 23, 2015. Which means the first painting was painted before and in anticipation of its launch, and the second after I played the Heart of Thorns story. In the full composition for this second one, Malyck is sitting next to him. They’re also meant to be back in the Grove. I am pretty sure I remember starting this painting as a sort of way to cope with how Heart of Thorns concluded for Trahearne, which is likely why I added the “friend and mentor” title in the filename. :p And likely also how I wished there had been development time to include Malyck in the narrative.
