Nightmare Court Necromancer Sketches | January 31, 2026

Drawing two hairstyles from the in-game options to figure out which look might fit the character (Animated).

I’ve been idly wanting to figure out a look for a new Nightmare Court necromancer character I’ve been thinking about recently. He’s in the same setting as “Nightmare’s Embrace,” but isn’t a major character (he likely won’t feature in the mini-comic later this year). Different from my existing sylvari characters, the idea for him arose from a short story I was writing, instead from one of my existing in-game characters. My other sylvari characters originated from their in-game versions first, with their personalities developing afterward. Oftentimes, influenced by the experience playing them in-game. 

I haven’t made a new GW2 character in a long time, and thought this was the perfect excuse to create a new one. I played around with the in-game style options the other day, and thought drawing them might help me decide on this character’s look. I think the color scheme is close – especially for the hair and glow color – but I’m not entirely satisfied on his hairstyle. The two here are the closest I was partial to for him, but I’m leaning toward sketching a few ideas at a later point not based on an in-game style, to see if I can figure out a look that fits him more closely. 

Line drawing of a sylvari showing two hairstyles from the game. Left shows a short hairstyle with broad leaves. Right shows a long hairstyle with numerous small leaves.
Lineart sketch.
Painted still of the previous artwork without the added glow.
Still of the drawing, without glow. 
Same drawing as before, only the right shows the lineart sketch, while the left shows the color sketch.
I just liked how this version looked.
Animated gif showing the pulsing glow of a sylvari with long hair. The glow is warm orange, his hair a dusky, reddish-violet.
Animated version of the hairstyle on the right.

I also tried out animating the glow color to see if it would help me decide on whether I liked either of these hairstyles for the character. Between these two, the one on the right fits him slightly better, and I think it turned out better when animated.

But doing this helped me decide I don’t think I will be satisfied with either hairstyle for him. 

Still of the animated version from the top of this post.
Still of the animated version from the top of this post.