I was playing around with some brush settings last week. This is one of the color tests (the other is Corveil, of course – I’d like to see if I can make him more presentable at some point).
Arquel Brush Test | April 9, 2026
Posts Tagged with sketches
Reaper Sketch | March 10, 2026
At the tail-end of formatting the Duskbirds zines – indulged briefly earlier with some imagination-drawing anatomy-practice with my sylvari reaper. I think I’m slightly more comfortable drawing torsos from imagination now.
I need to do more neck studies in the future.
Hannibal and Will Warm-up Drawing | February 11, 2026
I enjoyed season 2, episode 10 of the “Hannibal” tv show for all the wrong reasons, but it’s been a refreshing reminder for how much I love dark fantasies, haha. I knew I’d have to do a small drawing of them at some point.
This is from memory (another drawing from imagination practice), so I don’t expect the likeness to be precise – though I was thinking of the actors’ portrayals (Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelson). My hope is it conveys the “feeling” of their characters, even if the likeness isn’t precise. I’ve been really enjoying the actors’ performances, especially during season 2. This show has been a delightful, slow-burn for me – I almost didn’t continue it after the first initial episodes in season 1 – but the show really rewards you during the second season for sticking with it. I’m very glad I’m finally getting around to watching it after so long!
I’m still within season 2 (I think just finished episode 12 the other day). This show has been sort of fascinating me for how much it was able to get away with. I can’t believe it was a network television show. I question whether they would be able to shoot this show today.
I’m really glad it exists. I learned afterward that this show was cancelled in its third season for poor ratings, and even though I love it, I can understand why – it is so niche and unapologetic in its show creators’ interests. I really admire and respect this level of dedication to staying true to their vision. It almost feels more like an art house or indie production than a network show.
It’s giving me much to ponder about the type of art I want to do and express.
Cadeyrn Warm-up | January 9, 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.
Sketchpage | February 12, 2025
A few recent sketches of Corveil and Kurt I just wanted to post for myself. :) With Corveil, I was trying out some hairstyle options for him. I started with a longer hairstyle (which you can see in the top-left initial sketch), because while shorter hair probably suits his character better, I tend to lengthen his hair when I draw him purely because longer hair tends to be more fun for me to draw, haha. I was also doodling one of his outfits here, that I’d been fiddling with in other sketches. I think I semi-recently added the orange ribbon around his waist, at the time of sketching this. With Kurt, I think I just wanted to draw the tails of his jacket (this sketchpage is from the end of December, a little while ago now).
One thing I want to try and do more this year is post a little more about my characters – I’m not sure if it’s a recent thing or if I’ve always been a little like this, but I’m always reticent about sharing info about them for some reason. I think I’m just a bit that way in general – I struggle a bit with preferring to mostly keep to myself. Which is probably why social media has never felt natural to me. But, I shouldn’t have to be concerned about things like that when it’s my own space here on this blog. :) I think this place is a good way for me to unlearn some probably-unhelpful practices I picked up from mainly using social media for sharing art over the past few years, instead of my own space. (In hindsight, I probably should have been doing both, instead of one or the other.) Mainly to try and be a little less guarded here when it comes to expressing myself, because I have never been entirely comfortable doing so on social media. I’m not sure the reason, maybe because it feels more public. I could probably do a Duskbirds page exploring this issue, haha. Well, I don’t think the reason is too important. Probably something that’s mostly in my mind, and likely not noticeable outside my overthinking.