weirdest-wyrd

[weirdest-wyrd]

Introduction

Whoo! So officially introducing Taj to the BG3 TavDur community! I’ve started sketching the first pages of her comic so I didn’t want to reveal too much.What better way than if she was a companion? Inspired by @ranger-jahen What If....

I plan to do a full one in time but this seemed like a good start.We know BG3 is a dating sim with added Fireballs. I love all of them, love my strong girls, but sometimes that’s not who I connect with and probably why I love Karlach so much, big labrador energy. (I was also annoyed when during my playthrough (with Expanded Party Mod) when I had Taj and the girls on top of a cliff watching Wyll, Gale and Astarion jump up and down like chihuahuas trying to get on top of a bed. Fine! We’ll go around!)

So Taj would be the Ami Mizuno, Fluttershy dating option. She’s the shy one you’d have to bring out of her shell, help her grow. And if I’m honest, she’d probably be the HM slave. The one you keep in camp until you need to dig under a gate or distract with a meow and then dump back at camp.

I’m still in the ‘If I just download the right brush I will magically become a cool artist’ stage of delusion but I’ve found some I like. Drawing Taj was easy… Yay CSP models… The hard part was the background! I don’t think I got the horizonline right, seems a little close. First time drawing rocks. Bloody rocks.  Also my ‘download every brush makes the style disjointed.

But Tag! You’re it! New meme! If your TaDu was a companion, what is their introduction on their opening screen? Free to use, no asking or contribution required, but I'd love to see other peoples intros too!

[weirdest-wyrd]

Weirdest Wyd

G’day! I’m Sootycrowbait, aka Sooty! I’m a huge fan of Tav’s and Durge’s and you might know my social account; Weird Weave. 

This is my aspirational blog, where I organise my art journey especially dedicated to my Baldur’s Gate Tav, Taj the Drow Moon Druid and hopefully a dedicated webcomic, the Weirdest Wyrd. 

[weirdest-wyrd]

Snig!

So while also working on campfire, I finally got around to my DnD character Snig the Kobold. I found a wonderful pencil brush which I think is going to be my main pen from now on. She's a warlock, freed from slavery by her patron..... She thinks her patron is a magical talking rat... which I didn't finish drawing..

[weirdest-wyrd]

A Little Rest

I did it! I finally lined and based by campfire scene! Raster rather than Vector lines worked so much better because if I changed my mind, zip zip, edit and change. One thing I noticed embarrasingly late in the line stage was Shadowheart and Astarion had the same shoes because my reference images had the same shoes.... Snip snip. Hopefully not too noticeable.

You'll also notice is Taj's hair has changed.

As I have mentioned before, the Wyrd have become the party of sassy updos and changing Taj's silhouette might help with that with twin tails. I'll play around with my initial reference image as well. My brain isn't sold on it yet so this image may be tweaked again.

The other change is my version of Wyll's starter outfit. I felt he deserved his own unique outfit design. I may also change Lae'zel because I found a spiffy mod that gives her shaved sides which I feel fits her personality.

The last thing is.... colours. This is what I imagine everyone's mental image of their outfits. But in my playthroughs everyone had a colour.

Taj tends towards the dark amaranth pinks, pale blues and browns. I might have to turn up the pink to give her her own theme.

Karlach was going to be orange but then I stumbled on a line reading about how much she loves grass so despite the colour clashes, her colours are green and gold in her battle outfits.... but there's a gorgeous colour scheme called Peacock which looks so good on her leathers!

The same went for Wyll, he was going to be red and gold but then... Peacock looked good on him too so he's a more teal scheme. There's one last palette option but that's likely a plot twist to try and build on Wyll's storyline. One thing that sucked was that unlike everyone else, you got to decide his defining plot moment; save himself or save his father. Not even a persuasion roll. I hope I could tweak it a little bit with a little more nuance. In his original version, I never got to play, he was a little more vain. Wyll is unlikely to be vain, but I imagine it hurts when commoners flinch away from his demon bound horns.

Gale tended towards blues and golds but in my team he's my fire and ice spells so maybe royal purple is still the way to go. Still flipflopping.

Astarion looks good in black and gold.

Shadowheart's colours would change depending on on Gales, either dark violet or navy blue.

The more I stare at it, the more I find things wrong but I'm happy I got this far. What are your colour thoughts? Halp!

[weirdest-wyrd]

Snip and Scratch, brothers for life!

what has everyone's tavs named the owlbear cub?

athel'min calls the owlbear cub beak - after karlach called him a 'little beaky fella' the name stuck

[weirdest-wyrd]

Gwen the bard and her love Astarion admire the stars.

Uggg, so.... when I first started I kinda wrecked myself with three big, ambitious, slow moving projects while also learning how to use CSP and improve my drawing skills. Namely my two friends and their beaus, along with a big camp scene for my own Tav.

I was quite happy with my Karlach/Koran art but I think I kind of got lucky where I used a sketch pencil and raster layers, easy to scribble out and redraw and it looked pretty good. With this art I sketched it out and tried using the vector layer and my first attempt at weighted lines. I'm also at that frustrating stage of learning where I can see things aren't right, but can't figure out how to fix it.

I can see Astarion's hair is off, the ears are too big, the face is not angled naturally and he has a neck like a tree trunk. Gwen's face is too square and top heavy. And with vectors its just scribble, scribble erase but mass erasure and redo of lines to specific weights. I'm not happy, but you can only work on something for so long before moving on to something you can do better at.

I feel like if I can get the hang of faces, I can feel like my art is moving forward. Like ultimately, I want to do my webcomic, and I gotta get those faces right or otherwise how can get those big hellyeah emotional climaxes?

Again, I'll come back to this eventually and shade, maybe it'll look a little better but for now I'll get back to my camp art. Finally do the banner.

[weirdest-wyrd]

Sketch Hell

So I've been in sketch hell. I wanted to draw my coworkers characters and while I feel very confident with my Karlach/Koran results. For my mate's Durge, the bard Gwen and her beau Astarion. Astarion's stupid, stupid face. I've gone through multiple versions. I chose a brush I'm not happy with and I hate Astarion's outfit so I'll try again. Urrggggg. It's so demoralizing to feel like you're going backwards.

[weirdest-wyrd]

Fanon accepted. I look forward to Taj greeting everyone with a cheerful, "Cooee!"

[weirdest-wyrd]

Yes. I'd love to see more of this fanon...

Rough concepts for a masquerade ball in the upper city with subterfuge missions and a dance with your companion. One can dream 🥹

who should i draw next for the ball? XD

[weirdest-wyrd]

Sketch Done!

Now to figure out a good brush to line it! The CSP update came just in time to update the models with armor sketched on. But I also realised as marvellous as those models are, rl refs are still a necessity. Adorkastock has just about everything you could imagine and will use them much more in future art.

[weirdest-wyrd]

Wonderful wood textures with just a few flows of the pencil, is this the Last light in?

Astarion hits a nerve.

[weirdest-wyrd]

Halp

So one thing that I find disappointing is Wyll, unlike the other characters of BG3, doesn't get his own unique outfit. Is this too fancy for act one? Also, red or green?

Also... Tag, you're it. Wyll deserves his own outfit, give it to him.

[weirdest-wyrd]

So I've done templates of all of Lae'zel's armor for the future. And fixed those messed up abs. I think I'm getting the feel of where they're placed now....

But CSP has this brilliant tool where it draws and outline around your line, so if you use a white brush it makes piping so easy! And the symmetry tool, and the mesh tool.

Back twenty five years ago when I had a pirated copy of PS6 I couldn't dream it would be this easy. Suck it Photoshop!

I'm so lucky that when I bought Clip Studio I got a free upgrade to CSP4. And they're having a sale! Seriously! If you're like me, spending years admiring everyone elses art, this is a great tool for learning! And there are so many cost effective drawing tablets on Amazon! Come learn with me, share your bg3 Tavs and Durges!

[weirdest-wyrd]

Banner in Progress

Here's my attempt at putting the team together. This will be my first attempt at drawing the BG3 characters, figuring out their body type (thankyou CSP 3d models) and their hair. Wyll may go through several iterations because he still looks ugly as fuck, he went through several hairstyles. I was reluctant to do the dreads (dread mod for Wyll) because then we would be the Adventuring Party of Cute Updos. I gave in because flat, shorthaired Wyll were even uglier. Hide it with hair! Also noses. Nobody looks like they should because I can't draw noses. And those abs. Those are the abs of someone who learnt drawing from shitty anime books in high school by dividing the abdomen by three with crosses. Thank god for pinterest, I will hopefully get better.

[weirdest-wyrd]

Koran and Karlach

I'm utterly thankfully I get to discuss my new BG3 obsession with my workmates, so I figured I'd draw their characters. A good excuse to try a new pencil brush and CSP's amaaaazing asset store. Look at those barrels! Look at that wood texture! And that wall? Do you know I spent most of my time on those goddamned stones? More than Karlach's stupid belts? But this is Koran the Barbarian, a tiefling with a greedy streak, who loves her gold and speaks her mind.

Shading and Highlights will come eventually.

[weirdest-wyrd]

Introducing Taj

So time to introduce my Tav, Taj. She's a drow, Circle of the Moon Druid.

I'm still figuring out her personality as play style informs personality and personality informs playstyle. A lot of what I know I'd rather be revealed over time.

What do I know so far? She's not a big talker, her expressions and shy shrugs conveying much of what she wants to mumble. She collects outfits but never wears them, staring at them wistfully. She's a hoarder. Every mouldy cheese, tin mug and skull is catalogued in her many many chests and baskets (Container Mod). So far, she loves animals but animals don't like her.

She doesn't have a love interest yet. When I collect all the Act 1 characters I'll roll a randomiser and let fate decide. Except Wyll. I'm sorry Wyll, you have a date with Avernus if it kills me.

[weirdest-wyrd]

G'day

G'day everyone who stumbles on my blog!

So this obsession came about when I finally sat down to play Baldur's Gate 3. I watched my BF play and got frustrated when he gave up, so I gave it a try.

What a dumpster fire that included almost no rests in Arc 1, romances started too late and accidently freeing the Nightsong before Moonrise Towers....

But I was hooked and obsessed and inspired to dig out the artist tablet my BF bought me after seeing my crappy attempts at 2000s 'How to Draw Manga' in a notebook from high school.

So this blog is my redemption arc while I learn how to write a webcomic, a more realistic style and Clip Studio Pro, all inspired by Baldur's Gate 3. I'm probably going to be changing style and brushes, figuring out shading and highlights and cursing noses. I'll be binge-watching Dnd youtube, devouring up your OCs on my sideblog- Weird Weave.

But this Blog is dedicated to to my Tav-Lock (like a Nuzlock) where I shed my save-scumming ways and put the entire party through hell.