Unplanned Varré drawing from yesterday. I was pleased with the comic’s chapter 3 progress over the weekend, and rewarded myself by drawing Varré! Which I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I still have the other in-progress drawing of him from June I plan to finish at some point.
I ended up cropping this one, below are the full versions with some alternate versions, as well as without his quoted text:
Here’s also the initial sketch!Edit August 27, 2025: Below are the initial sketch, a slightly cleaned-up sketch before adding color, and a crop of the final to flip betewen!
“Varré” from Elden Ring | Current work-in-progress
I realized while typing the title for this post that it’s been exactly a month since I posted with the first time I drew Varré, haha.
I did the sketch for this last week while working on the comic pages, and I’d like to finish it sometime after the second chapter is a little more finalized.
“Varré” from Elden Ring | Initial sketch
The initial sketch from last week. The colors you see in this post were added quickly this morning, as a little break from the current comic for today.
The drawing at a slightly earlier stage from the top of this post, as I figured out which color scheme I wanted to use.
This is an earlier work-in-progress i think is less interesting. But I happened to save it, so here it is!
Initial thumbnail sketches.
I forgot I also saved the thumbnail sketches in the file – starts from left-to-right. The left idea was the initial idea, which is different from how the drawing ended up going. The middle thumbnail is trying out a variation of the first, as the first thumbnail wasn’t matching the idea I was imagining. (I might try that one again another time, as it’s a more difficult idea for me because it has more foreshortening).
The third thumbnail is the second one duplicated and then worked on further – lately, I’ve noticed I tend to concept my initial ideas this way. With a very messy thumbnail/sketch/silhouette, then duplicating it and dragging it to another part of the canvas. I might repeat this process a few times until I decide whether I like the idea or not. Then I’ll take the most recent version, hide the rest, and resize the “concept sketch” larger, and work on it that way.
It feels convoluted to me, but something about those extra steps seems to help me a lot with concepting.
Think I’m finished with the painting now. Above is the version with blood (more accurate to his character design), below is a version without it:
“Varré” from Elden Ring | Version without blood
Earlier work-in-process crop below:
Work-in-progress crop adding color/painting the lineart.
And original post below:
Varré | Current work-in-progress
One thing I didn’t expect from working on comic pages for The Harbinger’s Path is how it reminded me how satisfying it is to draw with lineart again.
I have also been playing Elden Ring for the first time recently, and I’ve combined these two interests in a practice drawing of my favorite character from the game (so far) – Varré, the oddly creepy personality with a questionable interest in blood.
The character’s demeanor was very bizarre to me, at first – this is also the first Fromsoft game I’ve ever played, and I’m not sure if this type of character is simply a staple of their studio, haha. But, he grew on me immensely after his later questlines in the game. Which I largely attribute to Pip Torrens – his line delivery is a delight for the ears. Every line is dripping with personality.
Varré | The refined sketch
I read that there’s speculation Varré was originally meant to play a larger role in the game, which might have been cut from the final release. Such a shame! I would have, without question, pursued his path were it an option – the character steals the screen every time he appears.
Varré | The rough sketch
The drawing at the top of this post is still in-progress – I’ll update this post with the finished version when it’s done, which should be soon. :D Finished & updated now.
