#limited colour portrait

[businesscatfelix]

limited colour portrait for @mikes-and-ike of mike the maned wolf. he/him.

prompt for this one was a song, you can listen to it [here].

[mbohjeezart]

Is it me or does the postman look hot?

[dustiedoodles]

@spacemanxephos requested Lalna in the Citrus colour palette and boy was this so much harder than I thought it’d be! Took the palette quite loosely and eventually we got somewhere 😂

[synsick]

SICK SYN MAGAZINE; Monochrome Madness & The Colour Connect Models: Collibrina, Jade, Lucy Magdalene

[ghost-t-cryptids]

Me but soft

[jasmines-library]

May i humbly request headcanons of Batfam w/ a sibling who's an artistic prodigy? Painting, drawing, music, instruments, singing/dancing, you name it she's a been born a master at it! Love your work! If it's limited to a certain amount of characters, perhaps just do Bruce, Dick, Jason, Tim & Damian but all family members are welcome!

⛤⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽⛧☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅⛤

Note: Hello lovely! You most certainly can! This idea is super cute.

⛧ BATFAM MASTERLIST ⛧

⛤⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽⛧☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅⛤

Ever since you were little you had always had a knack for art.

It started when Dick and Tim used to lay sprawled out across the floor with you to scribble on pieces of paper.

As you grew, as did your love for drawing. Your drawings were incredible, making the boy's jaw drop in disbelief whenever you produced a new piece of work.

Your talent didn't just stop at drawing though.

You were also incredibly talented at painting too.

Various easels had been propped up around the house so you could paint the scenes out of the manors many windows.

If they had time to, your siblings liked to watch you paint, seeing the colours come to life on the canvas and morph into something incredible.

One time, you had even managed to get everyone together for long enough to paint a family portrait.

It took a long time, with everyone away and with Babs always working down in the cave, Damian and the others out on patrol shifts, it was hard to get everyone there all at once. But you made it work.

The portrait hung proudly above the fireplace.

Bruce liked to buy you things to use. Brushes, paints, pencils, you name it. You didn't even have to ask. He bought them for you.

Jason honestly wasn't sure how you managed to have time for anything with how busy you were.

Not only did you spend countless hours drawing or painting, you had also taught yourself to play countless instruments and could often be found listening to, writing or playing music.

Cass, whose room was just across from yours liked listening to it as it passed under the doors.

Sometimes she even found herself humming along to it.

Jason had tried to get you to teach him how to play guitar once, though he didn't quite have the nimbleness or the patience to stick with it.

Sometimes, they all found it hard to not be a little jealous of you.

you were so naturally good at everything you tried that it was frustrating.

You could just pick something up one day and the next it would be like you had been practicing it for weeks on end.

They admired your passion though. Seeing you busy yourself with things you enjoyed really made them happy.

So even if they were secretly envying you, at the end of the day they would always help you indulge in your passions.

⛤⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽⛧☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅⛤

BATFAM TAGS

@aestheticdaisies @hearts4robs @xxrougefangxx @mamapucket @hell-o-kittys @harleycao @batfamsstuff

⛤⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽⛧☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅⛤

[seaquestions]

an honour to have you.

[ID: a drawing of lady tanith and her crucible knight from elden ring referencing the accolade by edmund blair-leighton. tanith is standing in front of her chair in volcano manor and holds a long thin sword over the crucible knight's shoulder, who is kneeling in front of her. a harsh shadow is cast at the top of the canvas. behind her is a framed portrait of rykard, mostly obscured. the piece is in a limited colour palette of greens and oranges. End ID]

[canmom]

so hades 2 huh

it's fun! i am more convinced after actually playing it than i was in the runup to it. the green colour palette looked a little drab in the videos but it works better for me fullscreen in game, and I really like the second zone's design. the major aesthetic change does go a little way towards making this feel like 'new Supergiant game' instead of just a rehash of the first game.

the difficulty floor is higher than the first game. i think it's well-tuned to go into if you've beaten that one. so far i've played 6 runs, seen the first boss in 5, and and beaten her in 2 of them; yet to get more than about halfway through the second zone after that tho!

the new mana mechanic is kinda interesting, lots of tradeoffs to make. it's a bit more granular than the cast in the first game; you use it to do powered up versions of your attacks, and spending it also charges up the Call-equivalent.

i'm increasingly intrigued by the setting, and i really like some of the side characters like arachne. i think the time skip was a good decision - the story of Zagreus et al. was definitely done. the epilogue ending of the first game was way too neat.

still, starting a revenge plot in media res is curious. especially when Nemesis lampshades the lack of personal motivation. compared to Zagreus's very pressing and relatable motivation (run away from my abusive dad), Melinoë's motivation is a little more abstract - this seems to be deliberate. but it does a fair bit to sell the sort of 'desperate resistance base' setting. it definitely seems rather like they're setting up a twist down the line. but it lacks the immediate emotional hook of the overbearing patriarch in the first game. curious to see how it will work once I've seen more of the story.

as far as the new gods, I'm fascinated by the decision to make Hephaestus and Hestia both be Northern - probably Yorkshire. it's always fun hearing regional UK accents in games. they do also both feel like responses to the criticism that Jen Z never designs fat characters lmao. still, they are good designs. both have satisfying mechanics. Selene also has a really good design I think.

the other gods' mechanics have naturally been redesigned to fit the new game. still broadly the same themes, e.g. Zeus will still be lightning based, but different interpretations of what that means, so for example you have 'hitting an enemy produces a lightning blast behind them' as the primary Zeus mechanic instead of chain lightning. which definitely keeps things fresh. Melinoë's kit has a lot of directional attacks and, with the Cast now being an AOE which slows/freezes enemies, there's a lot more emphasis now on positioning enemies to set up AOE attacks which is interesting.

the witch stuff is quite fun in an admittedly slightly cheesy way. it's definitely pull on aesthetic currents which aren't at all Ancient Greek, like the pointed hats. but hey! I can get into it, it's not like the game's aesthetic has ever been all that strictly historical. even if I am still scratching my head at 'so mote it be'. apparently it's an archaic word meaning 'may', i.e. 'may it be so'.

of course the main thing is, the actual moment to moment gameplay is fun. it flows just as the first game did, and it's just as addictive with the way it spreads out story breadcrumbs. the vfx and such look great, the movement is already super tightly tuned (tbf it's basically the same as the first game with the addition of a new 'hold dash to sprint'), and there's a already good variety of enemy mechanics.

there's some obvious placeholders for some of the UI art and character portraits (notably none of the keepsakes have been drawn yet), but overall it's surprisingly polished for an early-access build. all the voice acting is already there - it's fun seeing the Supergiant voice cast return in new roles.

the meta progression element... there's some neat ideas, like an upgrade system with a limited set of slots that very much calls to mind NieR Automata's chip system. so there are some stronger tradeoffs to make; it's not as simple as 'spend resource, get better' as it was in the first game. and it's clearly possible to advance quite far even without a lot of meta resource investment. so far it definitely feels like my main limit is skill, and I'll progress further once I learn more of the enemy patterns and figure out what builds I like to play.

(though I guess the idea with this kind of game is that the power ups quietly boost you and make it feel like you're getting better a lot faster than you are just learning the game lmao)

overall, it's just really fun to have another Supergiant game to sink my teeth into haha. I still wish they'd continued their streak of coming up with new IPs each time, because they'd come up with fantastic settings, but there's plenty of interest here still.

also the more I work in game dev the more I can appreciate just what a ludicrous amount of polish there is in Supergiant's games. I can only imagine the amount of work it must have taken to tune the feel of everything this tight.

[nectar-cellar]

GSHADE Preset - Nectarine

My personal GShade preset that I use for 99% of all my screenshots.

I'm not 100% sure about sharing this so I've disabled the reblogs and put the download link under the cut. I don't know why, it just feels more personal than any other cc I've uploaded, so I'd like to limit the exposure this post can reach. Hope you understand.

For those of you who see this and are interested in trying it out, please enjoy. Tag me if you use it, I'd love to see! 💗

Description

This preset is meant to just enhance the game's visuals, not make any drastic colour changes.

I use it for everything: portraits, scenery, and gameplay.

Daytime and nighttime.

Friendly for sims of all skintones.

I do not play the game with this preset turned on!! It uses a lot of shaders.

Usage

Enable the "CinematicDOF" shader for the depth of field effect.

Enable the "SSR" shader for the shiny/reflective/wet ground effect.

There's a whole bunch of other shaders you can enable/disable, like the bloom shaders, the film grain shaders, and more random ones.

It's unorganized because it's my personal preset that I'm always changing.

Compatibility

Made on GShade 3.5.0. Should be compatible with Reshade 4.9.1 but there may be missing shaders.

Make sure "edge-smoothing" is turned off in the game's settings.

Installation

Put this in your Program Files -> EA -> The Sims 3 -> Game -> Bin folder. For Reshade users, that's all. For GShade users, put it in the "custom presets" folder.

Download: simfileshare / mega

[businesscatfelix]

limited palette bust for my friend @jamtartzz <3

[sanhatipal]

"Noble d'Apchier"

A little watercolor painting of Chloe,with the Zorn palette! I found out about this palette a while ago and I really wanted to try it out! (More on that below )

Chloe's hair is something I adore, it's gotta be one of my absolute favourite character designs ever,I love how swirly and fluffy it is,very fun to draw. I've drawn her normally before,I wanted to do one with her vampire eyes and fangs too. I decided to try to draw a white fuzzy rim around the foreground against the plain background,for a change,like in some of the VnC panels.

The Zorn palette,or Apelles Palette was a colour scheme used by Anders Zorn in the late Victorian/Early Edwardian era. It ,or something similar,might have been used by artists of old civilizations too, because it avoids the use of blue and green entirely: which would eliminate the need for rare pigments . It's essentially a colour mixing challenge,to draw the entire paintings with 4 pigments,2 basic colours: Ochre yellow, Vermillion,and Black and white,which can be mixed into different shades. It can be an excellent exercise and means for portrait painting

Modern artists use red instead of vermillion,but the essence is the same. So that's what I did too. I considered using vermillion,but I realised that it would introduce a lot of yellow tint, making the picture very warm. Which is usually something I prefer honestly,but not what I was going for here. Also,I need to consider the fact that I'm a watercolour artist,which is very different from the original intended palette. Zorn used oil paints,but other artists use it fine for gouache and acrylic too, however,that too is different from watercolor, because instead of mixing with white, I'll be diluting with water,which changes the composition of the palette considerably. So I went with these supplies: ochre yellow and red watercolor pencils (for me, basically watercolor pigments,I don't use them to draw,I grind and dissolve them in water),white and black watercolor tubes,and white ink. In addition: lineart with sepia,grey and black brush pens,which are well within the bounds of the palette

To be honest,I ended up not using the white paint tube at all,water makes more sense to me. I didn't use anything else though,and stuck with the original materials.And the results:

Does it work? Hell yeah. It's not perfect,but I'm happy with how she turned out

Was it restricting? That's kind of the point,to paint with some limitations

Was it hard? Honestly? No. Not at all. It's definitely very different from what I'm used to,I use a lot of colours both as is and mixed,but this was surprisingly easy. Perhaps because of my subject,which didn't have much colour to begin with

Do I recommend it? If you want a small challenge,or to experiment or practice colour mixing,definitely

Will I do it again ? Absolutely. I feel like I haven't utilised much of the potential of this palette. I ended up using mainly red and black, hardly any yellow at all. So I'd like to do something more colourful with this palette, perhaps a sunny painting of a gingerhead girl with flowers,and for this I'll probably use vermillion,not red

Anyways, that's all! If you read all this,thank you for your time!!

[piyo13sdoodles]

Sketch commissions for Palestine

I want to help, but don't have very much money; however, I do have lots of paper and some pencils--so if you present proof of you having donated 25$ or more to an organization involved in getting humanitarian aid on the ground in Gaza, I'll draw you a pencil sketch of your choice! (For 35$+, I'll line it with fineliner to give it a bit more definition).

**Limited to the first 10 people to take me up on this for now, as unfortunately I also have limited time! Please DM me here or on discord (piyo9968) if you're interested!

Terms & conditions and examples under the cut:

donation must be a NEW donation, sorry--if you donated a week ago i applaud you but i want to encourage further donations, so in the spirit of that, etc...

this will be digital delivery only, of a high-quality scan sort of nature; if you REALLY want the physical copy we can chat about it but it might be complicated

pencil or fineliner only! meaning no colour beyond greyscale or b/w for the moment

please don't ask me to draw mecha. i'm very bad at drawing machines. similarly, not comfortable drawing porn for strangers. i can attempt portraits i guess but i am still an amateur in that department

animals, OCs, and fandom characters are fair game though. can do landscapes too i suppose

i'll leave the choice about whether i post it to this blog up to you

turnaround maybe be 3-4 weeks depending on whether anyone takes me up on this or not!

Okay now on to examples:

The first two are the kind of detail to expect on the lining (e.g., i won't erase the pencil or do complicated inktober-level stuff); the bottom three are examples of sketches in my style.

Other examples can indubitably be found on this blog.

[astarionposting]

I’m at work right now, but I feel like doing gifs/portraits of tavs tonight once I get home… if anyone wants to allow me to borrow their tav/oc to make some gifs and portraits, send me a dm and/or ask into my inbox!! <3

I’ll need all the info for their mods and all the customization stuff so I can apply it into my game. Also an idea of what kind of scene/theme you would like + colour palette (since some may want it different from what I usually do)

If you play on console and maybe are missing out on mods (but have an idea of what your modded tav would look like), I’m happy to do so as well ! 😊

EDIT: forgot to add, the photos will be 4K and I can email the original PNG files to you as well for higher quality downloading. The gifs quality aren’t guaranteed to be suuuper amazing because it honestly depends on the length/colour complexity of the gif, but I can also export a higher quality (over 10mb) gif and send it by email if you wish.

ANOTHER EDIT: A lot of people are concerned about if there are a limited number of slots. I have no limit as of right now and will be taking every request that is sent to me until I impose a limit (which I probably won’t). If I receive a lot, it will just be first come, first serve and MAY take like 2-3 days MAX. I pretty much do nothing with my life except play games, sleep and go to work lol.

Thought i'd do a template to make it easier if you aren't sure what I need to know:

Picture of your tav/oc

DETAILS

Name: Race: Head: Body type: Skintone: Scar: Skin details: Eyes: Body art: Piercings: Makeup: Eyes- Lips- Hairstyle: Haircolour:

CLOTHING LIST

head: neck: body: hands: shoes:

MOD LIST

(links to your mods)

THEME

(what kind of scene/theme did you have in mind?)

COLOUR PALETTE

(a general colour palette, e.g. cool tones, focus on blue hues, dark and gloomy or warm tones, focusing on orange/yellow tones, bright and cozy)

[dorylinae-supremacy]

C is for.... Crownoblade!

Ok so I disappeared for a while but I finally finished this bit! Thanks to the commenter who gave me this idea! Now he matches with Phil :-)

As per all my other renditions, please feel free to leave comments o)n what next weeks (subject to change) hybrid will be! It'll be D so it'll be cool to see what you guys might come up with!

I don't like this one as much (Antnoblade has been my fav so far) but I still like how he turned out! He has a fun outfit for such a limited colour palette.

Also I might change up the pose? I kinda like the weird 'portrait' look but idk I'll have to see

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

ok here's my half-hearted attempt to figure out the tripolar singularity

[ID: First image is a screencap of Fukuchi holding the space-time sword at his side; the blade glows bluish purple. The second is a colour portrait of Fukuchi from the manga. The last is a screencap of the Holy Sword from the anime, wreathed in blue light against a dark backdrop. End ID.]

The singularity is comprised of three components:

Shintō Amenogozen - The space-time sword, which allows the wielder to cut through time and space in a limited capacity. Created by an ability user to be used in shinto rituals 1500 years ago, Fukuchi used it for combat which made him nigh-unbeatable due to his ability amplifying the sword's range - from around 12 centimeters to a hundred-fold more: 1200 centimeters, or 1.2 meters. Interestingly, the original time limit seems to be the same - a limit of 12 seconds - so Fukuchi does not seem to have enhanced it temporally. An interesting line about it from chapter 86: "A katana infused with both the ill-omened and divine... At that time and place, what was unexpectedly materialized resembled the very law of the universe." Another from 114.5: "The space-time sword, said to have God himself dwelling within it."

Mirror Lion - Fukuchi's ability, which allows him to enhance any weapon he gets his hands on by a hundred fold. From his use of Shintō Amenogozen though, it seems as though he can amplify speed, strength and range but in only spatial dimensions, not temporally.

The Holy Sword Soluz Levni - The sword used to seal Bram, forged from an ability user who died and had their body turned to metal. It both attached to the brain of its victim and placed a Holy Seal on the hand of the one who wielded it, which is what allowed Fukuchi to use Bram's ability. It does this by consolidating "body" and "ability" into one, thereby merging the physical with the abstract. Bram has been stabbed with it twice.

As with any singularity, the key is to find the paradox or contradiction - as the space-time sword was the last component that set off the actual singularity, that's what we need to be looking at most closely. A singularity also takes one of two forms that we've seen so far - one, the clash of two or more similar abilities with no clear victor creates an unforeseen third effect (Odasaku vs Gide), and two, an interaction of ability on the self or with another ability creates a feedback loop that amplifies indefinitely and becomes much more powerful than its host (Rimbaud, Chuuya, Verlaine).

In order, Fyodor stabs Fukuchi with the Holy Sword, fusing body and ability. This may already cause a singularity - the physical and the abstract has been merged. We still don't really know what this means, but if you recall from Dead Apple, abilities can be temporarily separated from their "hosts", and from Stormbringer, abilities require a human or human-like soul/will to exist (with the exception of singularities), so while we don't know the true ramifications of this merge, we do know it's... significant, in some way. This part here is the big question mark to me.

But in this case, the result should be inert. This shouldn't cause anything in particular to happen - but it does, we assume, allow Fyodor to wield Mirror Lion through wielding the blade.

So when he stabs Fukuchi with the space-time sword, this is where, presumably, the feedback loop is created.

Mirror Lion is bound to Fukuchi's physical form and able to be controlled by Fyodor -> Shintō Amenogozen is stabbed into Fukuchi -> Fyodor holds the hilts of both swords, allowing him to amplify both simultaneously with Mirror Lion as the conduit -> ??? evil profit???

My current thought (really more of a shot in the dark than anything) is that Fyodor amplifying the Holy Sword also binds Shintō Amenogozen's ability to Fukuchi's body (so there are two abilities bound to one body now - one space-time cutting and the other constant amplification). This amplification is likely the source of that feedback loop that would amplify the ability into a singularity (so presumably, bye Fukuchi, for good now - he's ceased to be human, most likely), and now that both abilities are bound to Fukuchi on a physical plane... I suspect the time range can now be extended. It allows Fyodor to increase the range of time the sword can jump through far past its limits, and if Fyodor is now in control of how this time-cutting ability is directed, then theoretically, Fyodor may now be able to jump through time and space and alter the outcomes of various points in history. If he wants to rid the world of ability users, this would be a control freak's best means of doing so, I assume.

"Two heavenly blades bring forth unto this land, a miracle."

Essentially Fyodor may want to rewrite ability users out of the narrative, and so in order to use the Book (potentially) to do so, he needs to "prepare" the timeline so that removing abilities makes logical narrative sense (in keeping with the rules of the Book). Alternatively, he cannot use the Book because it may have been created by an ability user, so this would be an unalterable contradiction - he is forced to remove ability users by going back to do things manually, perhaps even by killing the original creator of the Book.

I am definitely going to turn out to be completely wrong on this, but I hope it was fun to read, nonetheless!

[kaitcreates]

Over analyzing the Sword Catcher official art because I can.

First up Kel. He has his sword catcher medallion on and his clothes look blue then green like he’s described wearing in the book because the Queen wanted him to wear her home country’s colours and it doesn’t look like what we see Conor wearing in his portrait so Kel might’ve picked this outfit himself. The coat also ruffed up’s little, one of the sleeves even has a tear in it, he doesn’t start getting into any serious fights in the book until he sides with the Ragpicker King, around the same time he starts finally exploring his own identity if only slightly so this’s probably around that time frame. He has the scar on his eyebrow that Conor is described as having which I can feel has some sort of importance to their characters. The background is some waves, clearly referencing his love of the ocean and sailing, along with swords indicating his sword catcher title. His foreground is one of the less interesting with just a pile coins for his wealth as the prince’s fake cousin, a pile of scroll for how much reading he does, and a pile of something back that I’m not quite sure what it is. It looks like it might be some black powder but he hasn’t done anything with black powder yet in the story. Maybe it’s a metaphor for life as he knows it getting blown up as the story goes along, who knows. It’s also worth noting that he doesn’t have any flowers in his portrait, this might be nothing but it’s almost like a theme with most of the other portraits so it’s worth noting.

More characters under the cut because this got long:

After that we have Conor. His clothes and jewelry aren’t anything to write home about, it looks properly royal with plenty of jewels showing of his wealth. Though I do take not that the eyebrow that has a scar though it is covered in his portrait. His background depicts the Castelane lion on top of the city state’s national colour of red obviously a nod to him being the prince of the City-State. The hour glasses seem to represent his limited time as pressure begins to build on him, and I’m not quite sure what the falling rings represent, maybe they’re supposed to be coins and represent something about his debt. Again the piles of money, books, and scrolls represents his wealth and being well read. We can see what one do the scrolls says but it’s not very clear and seem to be written in one of the world’s fictional languages, if anyone can translate it please send it to me but it might not be anything special. The banner/flag in the corner is certainly important but I can’t remember anywhere that it would belong to at the moment so again if you can think of anything that would be a huge help. It’s also once again worth noting he’s one of the few character to not have flowers in his portrait.

Lin’s is arguably the most obvious. She has her mystery-stone brooch, her ashkar ring, is wearing the ashkar’s mandatry colours of blue and grey, and her medical satchel. The background has a glyph behind her with runes in it since she’s trying to bring magic back, the golden whisps also look magical, and the herbs and plants are for healing. There are diagrams of human anatomy behind her and the flowers have vials of what I presume is medicine strewn in them. This is also the first showing of flowers in a characters portrait, I thought it was representing her medical herbs and flowers. In the flower bed you can also see a split open pomegranate which could symbolize her growing doesn’t into darkness and crime as she tries to find a cure to Mariam similar to Persephone and the underworld.

Antonetta’s is relatively simple. Her outfit is what her mom forces her to wear throughout most of the book and she’s wearing her heart locket. Her background is also pretty simple with no special patterns or symbols to speak of, just some lace patterning at the edge of the circle similar to her outfits. It’s really the foreground that interests me. The perfume bottle is slightly odd as we never get any focus on her using perfume or smelling nice, but it does fit the perfect noble woman image so it’s not out of place. The sword being mostly hidden except the hilt is a nod to the secret sword lessons she takes, which she’s hiding from nearly everyone. The rose is obvious symbolism for looking beautiful and pretty but having thorns if you try to grab it. Around this I started thinking that maybe the flowers represented characters who were trying to get more then their current position in life was giving them. The most confusing thing about her portrait though is the bloodied handkerchief and golden locket around it. Bloodied handkerchieves are pretty much solely used in fiction for someone with a deathly illness but as far as I know Antonetta isn’t sick in anyway and defiant not of the fatal kind. Maybe it’s a nod to her friendship with Mariam.

For The Ragpicker King I would like to bring your anterior to his right hand. As you can hopefully see it looks like some slights scars are peaking out from his sleeve. What does this mean? I don’t know. I have no memory of this being described in the book, and was just something interesting I noticed. In the background you can see something that almost looks like a jail cell, likely referring to him being a criminal. There are also many playing cards flying around behind him for some reason, I’m not really sure since it’s never made note of him being especially in to card games or to use card metaphors in his plans. The piles of envelopes are likely his letters to and from the King and the books represent him once again being well read and his enjoyment of research. The evolvement of flowers once again confuses me because from what we see he seems perfectly content in his current life. Maybe it’s about how he escaped a life he was unhappy in.

Ji-an doensy have much going on, neither do most of the characters moving forward. The most interesting thing I could find about her appearance is that she’s wearing makeup. She has the two black swans, which I’m pretty sure I’m not remembering the full importance of, from her line about the swan pulling her carriage. She has a variety of swords in the back ground, one of which is she is holding. This could both represent her status as a killer but also as sort of like ghosts of the family she killed. Her flowers continue to feed into my “escape from current life/escaped from past life” theory and there isn’t much else to say.

Merren has nothing super interesting about his appearance in this portrait. It suits his personality and that’s about all I could say. The background is an obvious nod to his poisoner status with the wisps of smoke(possibly from hot tea?) leading up to a skull. I’m not entirely sure what the quills are supposed to represent, maybe it’s supposed to be because he’s a student so quills are like pencils in their world. Mostly his foreground also just seems to be about him being smart if a little messy when it comes to parts of his life outside of poisons and antidotes. The most specific thing I can find is the spilt concoction which is likely poisons. Once again the flowers are confusing, I had a theory that the flowers represented someone studiously seeking out knowledge, except Ji-an and Antonetta don’t follow this pattern. Merren also doesn’t fit into the “run/ran away from a life they didn’t like” theory unless there’s a part of his backstory that we don’t know about that fits into it. If anything he was pushed out of a life he liked. The flowers aren’t a super big part of the portrait and more of just an accessory anyways so fine, maybe it’s not meant to connect to the other flower portraits.

Joss’s portrait has two elements worth taking note of. First, the abundance of arrows and bows. This is mostly likely a nod to indoor archery, but I do hope we get more archery in his character and fighting style down the line. Second, he has some flowers in the foreground. Which just adds to the confusion because, as far as we know, he’s pretty happy with his current life and he almost definitely hasn’t ran away from an old life.

And the flowers continue to be confusing. Vienne is special in the fact that the flowers are pretty much the only other element of her portrait outside of herself. They do kind of make it look like she’s buried in flowers, especially with her helmet resting on the bed, and does work with the fact that she died at the end since giving flowers is a common way to pay respects to the dead, at least in western culture. In my admittedly short research session, the flowers seem to be Marigolds. These flowers are commonly used in day of the dead and symbolized grief and mourning in the victorian era, continuing the idea that these flowers are being used to represent her death. In renaissance times(the time period Cassie says she took the most inspiration from for those world) Marigolds were gifted to woman that men wanted seduce. What this means for Vienne I have no idea but it felt worth mentioning.

Now at this point you might be thinking “Couldn’t the flowers not actually mean anything and instead it’s the lack of flowers that represents something?” And I was think that too until Jerrod and his lack of flowers came along! Why are the only characters without flowers Kel, Conor, and Jerrod?! In other news Jerrod has basically nothing to take note of. His fingers look much paler then the rest of his hand from the chalk and the daggers facing towards his head could either represent that he’s being threatened or that he’s threatening. That’s really it. The rope and keys seem to be vaguely related to being able to get into places, but at the current moment they don’t seem to really be that personally connected to him.

So over all I have three main questions after this:

What in the world do the presence or lack of presence of flowers mean?

Were the details that don’t make sense to us right now cut after the art was made or are they hinting at future developments?

Why didn’t Mariam get a portrait?