I’ve been wanting to do a series of “portrait-style” paintings for some of my favorite sylvari characters – the first one I’ve finished so far is Dagonet (from last October), and I’ve shown WIP’s of Riannoc and Cadeyrn in places before. Riannoc has been very close to being finished for a while, and I also have one secret character I don’t think I’ve mentioned anywhere yet, who’s been in a near-finished state for good while too. Only need to do that last 10-5% of polish – which I’ve found tend to takes me more time than I estimate, but which often results in the most stark features for whether I’m satisfied or dissatisfied for how a painting turns out.
Cadeyrn is in a more incomplete state, though I don’t think he’d take me significantly longer than Riannoc and the secret character (one of my favorites, and I don’t think I’ve drawn the character before now).
I should probably standardize the nameplate design, though I sort of like Malyck’s placement more than Dagonet’s. Issue to solve in the future!
I mainly wanted to see how Dagonet and Malyck look side-by-side so far. :D especially as I haven’t posted the Dagonet painting on this sketchblog since it was from last October.
Oh! I should post the process for it, too – I’ll post them below:
Sketch
Color block-in
Finished
And, let’s post a detail crop below:
Detail close-up of Dagonet
Why are sylvari so fun to paint? I never tire of them!
“The Nightmare Harbinger” or “Harbinger Malyck” | 2025 updated version (WIP)
I’ve been putting the final adjustments for the first chapter of The Harbinger’s Path, and thought it would be fun to show two past paintings of Trahearne and Malyck which were early representations for what has developed into this comic project. Only, when I saw the Malyck painting again, all I could notice were all the errors I wanted to fix!
I ended up spending some time yesterday doing a paintover of it – for fun, but also for practice. At the time it was painted (all the way back in 2018), I could see there were errors – which I had tried to fix, but not entirely successfully. It ended up being very satisfying painting over it, as I could now do many of the things I aspired to do at the time, but which were out of grasp for my skill level (though the current version is not perfect by any means – but hopefully mostly presentable in its current state, haha).
I also realized there were several things about Malyck’s design which I didn’t draw accurately back then – mainly his leather gauntlets and additional belt straps (though by far not limited to only those). I could not believe I forgot his additional belt straps, because nowadays, those are some of my favorite aspects of his design to draw!
“The Nightmare Harbinger” (2025 WIP version)
Without additional atmospheric washes
Original 2018 version
Above are the current and original versions, for comparison. I still think the overall concept for the 2018 painting was solid, but the intended pose I was going for was more complex than what my skill level was capable of back then.
The raw file for this updated version is very messy in its full resolution, which is why I don’t consider it finished yet (and in the version without the additional color washes, you can plainly see the unfinished, rough areas). Until then, hopefully its current state is again mostly presentable!
“Trahearne and the Jungle Dragon”
“The Nightmare Harbinger” (2025 WIP version)
And here it is as the pair of paintings I intended to post yesterday (now with this updated version of the Malyck painting).
The Trahearne painting is even older, from 2016. There are definitely parts of the anatomy I would do differently now, but I think compared to the 2018 version of the Malyck painting, this worked much better because of the decorative aspect of the sylvari design (I’m perpetually in awe of Kristen Perry’s design direction for concepting them – if you’ve never seen her documentation for GW2’s sylvari redesign, go check it out now – you’re in for a treat!) (I’m also so happy her site is up now! And that we can still view her design documents easily today. There’s so much to learn from admiring her design sensibilities!).
The Harbinger’s Path Launch Date (and extra odds and ends)
Launch Date: May 12
I should also probably mention somewhere on this sketchblog that the comic is slated to launch next Monday, May 12th! I also want to put together some fun extras, mainly a PDF of the first chapter which will be free to download. With how unreliable social media has become, I’ve also been meaning to set up a mailing list of some sort for a long while (there’s a link on my portfolio site, and at the bottom of the this blog’s homepage, but I never ended up sharing it anywhere else yet) – I’m planning to offer the PDF of the first chapter as a little bonus for joining the mailing list.
Chapter 1 PDF Extras
It’ll have some bonus art in it, either things like some of my favorite lineart drawings from the first chapter (before colors were added), and/or preview layout drafts from the next chapter(s) (I have up to chapter 3 drafted, but I’ll probably limit this to chapter 2 previews).
One of the reasons I didn’t end up sharing the mailing list when I first set it up, is because I didn’t know yet how I wanted to use it. I’ve had time to ponder it for a while now, and my current thought is I might segment the mailing list into different interests – but probably not too many, as that sounds like it might become complicated for me to manage. More thoughts about this in the full post if you, for some reason, wish to read my thinking aloud to myself, haha:
“The Harbinger’s Path” | Panel preview (in-progress / artwork not final)
One more panel preview! This might be the final one I do before releasing the first chapter, as I realize I shouldn’t show too much before the whole thing is released.
“The Harbinger’s Path” | Panel preview (in-progress / artwork not final)
Started touching-up the left panel more. :) Proportion fixes for Trahearne. Also a higher-resolution version than earlier.
Earlier post below:
“The Harbinger’s Path” | Panel preview (in-progress / artwork not final)
Ahh! I’ve been making steady progress on The Harbinger’s Path, and I’m really excited to finish the first chapter – partially because it will be so satisfying when I can finally call it done, but (maybe even more so) because I am SUPER excited to work on what happens next!
I have the layout for most of the next chapter drawn out, and I am looking forward so much to drawing these. It’s hard to stop myself from working on them now, but I know I need to finish the first chapter before I can work on the pages after again.
Below is a small preview of a scene from the next chapter – one of several scenes I’m dying to progress!
The Harbinger’s Path” | Panel preview – starting to clean up the layout
Trahearne sketch ideas (character from Guild Wars 2).
The idea was, I wanted to see how Trahearne looked if he held Caladbolg in the “modern fantasy” greatsword style, where the weapon is slung (probably impractically) over the shoulder. I suspect (though could easily be mistaken) this pose was once popularized by FF7’s Cloud Strife player character, and has since become a standard fantasy pose. I think GW2’s in-game male humans and norn also take inspiration from that pose, instead of the more practical carried to the side, as GW2’s in-game male sylvari characters wield them. Incidentally, this was one of the early things which endeared me to my male sylvari character – and eventual new main – over my original female charr main.
While I cannot help but think the pose is impractical whenever I see it, there’s no denying it looks slick, in an anime sort of way, haha. It admittedly also probably looks more practical in this case, as I made Caladbolg smaller than I would have otherwise, to fit in the composition. If I take this further, I’d need to push Caladbolg’s perspective more, to appear its proper size.
Earlier versions, plus a rough color test.
Random Trahaerne sketch from last week. I think it became unintentional practice for the sketch from this week.
