today I had the urge to draw Adolin and then decided that he deserves to have his spouses loved ones with him.
well... he did have Gallant in the first iteration.
Sometimes I get mad at Wit for spending way more time with Kaladin than Shallan bc I think Shallan could really really use some hoid storytime but actually it makes sense. Wit will tell Kaladin “oh yeah im from another planet” and he goes “ok” but if he tells shallan he knows about a new kind of moss???? Followup questions. he just doesnt wanna deal with the curious child
adolin and maya beloved but also the most time consuming because i had to figure out how the hell i was going to do adolin's hair and not hate looking at it, and maya took me forever to figure out the colours lol. looked at so many references trying to figure out what dead vines should look like and what i would like it to look and i couldnt really find what i wanted lol. but what i went for was like really dried out and very very dead looking fibre. that wasnt too bad but trying to figure out her clothes that would look decent before and after she becomes a deadeye was hell for me an amateur colour theory understander lmao
i have drawn shallan before so she wasn't too difficult but i was truly torn about which version of pattern i wanted to show?? so i did a few of them hahah. i did a canon compliant version, alluding a bit to BE NOT AFRAID angel vibes. but im pretty passionate about ferrofluid-looking pattern as thats what i picture in my head (but i couldnt really find a good reference so i couldnt really do it well. it's also like, about the way it moves more than a still frame so extra challenge). and if you've seen my shallan art you know i. asdlkfjh. i originally pictured pattern as a QR code so i was compelled to continue it. @mistbjorn this one's for you because youre so right <3
syl i usually picture similar to kida in disney's atlantis when she merges with the crystal and you can see her scalp beneath her transparent hair, so thats the inspo for her. for the sylspear i designed it to look a bit like a caduceus as homage to kaladin's medical training and his dad, and like it's not that deep but i guess the swirly glowy bits are his duality and being torn between two worlds etc etc or you can just picture spren zipping about if you want lol like i definitely pictured syl was one but the other makes no sense
the kholins i dont have much to say since they were not part of my original plan hahaha but i couldn't help adding them too. i lowkey struggled to make them unique but also similar because family alksdjfhs i was sketching this around a time i did a lot of face studies so it was so whack and the colouring absolutely killed me so it is what it is asldkjaklsdjf
I've been trying so hard to find an asian/wasian shallan fc since everyone took the "She's pale" and fancasts her as white even though she's confirmed to have epicanthic folds and is inspired by Mongols by brandon. So for your consideration; Havana Rose Liu as Shallan Davar
Boots!
In 2022 Brandon Sanderson's art director Isaac Stewart asked me if I could redo an illustration of the scene I made two years prior for the leather bound edition of the Words of Radiance
So I tried for a new framing that would keep or even up the antics of everyone‘s expression, but would feel a bit more cinematic.
The horse, of course, was the most difficult one to get to feel right and a lot of it gets swallows by the gutter in print. 😅 And I tried so hard to make it offended by Shallan‘s (loudly uttered) demands.
Kaladin’s expressions also took a lot of altering until it sat right. I am very happy with this Tyn. 😁
The crowdfunding campaign for the Edition starts on the 5th of March on Backerkit. It’ll be very pretty with loads of additional art! (There’s also a probability of more art by me in there… 😉)
The ID for the illustration in the book is by the great @priscellie
The IDs for the rest is by me
Obsessed with the bit in oathbringer pt2 where shallan is like ‘oh there’s something wrong with the spren in this city I need to study them’ and decides the best way to do this is to intentionally fall over in front of adolin & kaladin and give them the equivalent of a panty shot. For science