Tag: Dungeons and Dragons

Studio Hangout MAR 2025 – TTRPG Portraits & Artist AMA [Video + Monthly Digest]

Where did March go??? Here’s the skinny on the happenings, new art, etc. for this month. You can watch the video above (which has captions and chapter breaks in the desc on YouTube) for my full update. This post contains an abbreviated summary if you’re short on time and a transcript of the full video attached to this post.

Personal Updates

It’s been a rough month! I’ve been attempting to keep up with writing and art, but found myself overwhelmed trying to juggle art/writing classes, a regular biweekly stream schedule, and swapping my sleep schedule to a new night-time routine (as endorsed by Brandon Sanderson).

This month, I’ve also taken the time to do our taxes and was faced with the exact numerical value of how my business has been impacted by social media and AI flooding Etsy’s marketplace in the past year (60% down in sales, to be precise).

The art community is suffering existentionally right now, so I have to thank you all once more for your continued support during these trying times! It’s been a struggle to create with all this noise around us. Making art goes, slowly, but surely!

New Art

I only have a couple of things to share this month because of existential dread brain and taking time to do taxes reasons.

  • Yorigasu, a celestial agent from Exalted. (Top)
  • Artorias Portrait (Bottom Right) – A D&D character portrait currently in-progress (which was shared for the first time on stream). Watch the full vid for more about each character.

  • Writing Class Homework – A little different than the art I share, but hopefully an interesting glimpse, regardless! Here’s a quick look at the brainstorming homework I’m doing for my writing class with Maggie Steitvater. A longer explanation is in the video as well as a story pitch of what I’m working on.

Ask Me Anything Questions

Check the time stamps for the answers to these questions.

  • 22:25 – (From Aaron R.) – What’s a piece of yours that surprised you?
  • 24:53 – (From Lindowyn) – What is the most satisfying piece that you’ve done?
  • 27:13 – (From Lindowyn) – What is your favorite medium?

Announcements

  • Art Streams are on hold until further notice!  I’ve been overwhelmed and sleep-deprived and needed more time to focus on re-balancing my schedule. Art streams will return once I’ve been able to settle into a healthier schedule for myself! Game Streams (featuring the game Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden) is still a go for Thursdays, 8pm EST.
  • Coming in April! – Creating private character art commission samples is my current priority. Then, I hope to return to focusing mainly on writing, with a couple of days a week spent on art as soon as the samples are out in the wild. I’m hoping taking these private commissions can help refill our life savings after our bad year last year. They will be released to my Patrons and newsletter subscribers before the public.

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    Catch you next month.
    Wishing you all inspiration!

    <3 Angela S.

May Sketch A Day Week 4 – The Blood Hunter & The Faerie

This week was a lean week for sketching while I was rushing to get my enamel pin sketches off to the company!  I squeezed a little bit of sketching time in thanks to my husband gifting me an iPad Pro (YAY!) and encouraging me to take the time to sit down and have a play with it.  

All of the sketches this week were created with Adobe Sketch on the iPad Pro, with the exception of the sword portrait, which was started in Sketch and transferred into Photoshop for finishing.

Head Portrait – Nils

This piece is a milestone for being the first image I created on the iPad Pro!  I’m impressed by the responsiveness of the Apple Pencil and the way I could tilt the stylus for the graphite shading used in this one.

This week I had an urge to explore Nils, a shy priest of Kelemvor from a Dungeons & Dragons one-shot I played some time ago.  I was smitten by this quiet, sweet man in such a brutal profession of being a Blood Hunter!  

He wears his worries on his face, where he often looks tired and anemic, the blood magic use taking a toll, as well as the terrible things he’s seen in his past (which you can read more about in his character biography here).

The Watcher Appears

Experimenting with the watercolor blooms in Sketch on the iPad made me want to draw something dreamy and dark, which is where this gal from my Song of Exile storyworld came in!  She was drawn completely off the cuff without worrying about my mistakes.  This won’t be her final design, but it was just fun to muck about without being too precious (the whole goal of May Sketch A Day for me). 

Some flavor text for The Watcher:

Old stories still speak of her, though her name is long forgotten. They called her The Watcher, for she watched mankind for centuries from between the moments and the twilight shadows, always curious, always seeking through the eyes of the animals in her desert domain. Why did humans tarry so, she mused?

Whenever a traveler finds her moths in the desert, they know she is there, always watching through their spots, and they pay her homage whether she is there still or not.

Blood Grooves

After seeing this glorious character sheet by Mooncalfe, I was in the mood to do some more character sketching to show various pieces of equipment and angles for Nils!  I’m pretty shocked that Blood Hunters don’t have any specialized weapons for their demon-slaying, monster hunting craft.

I’ve envisioned Nils using a pair of scimitar custom crafted by his Order that allow him to trigger a needle which lances his palms and sends blood down the handle into the blood grooves on the sword.  This lets him more efficiently use his blades for Crimson Rites, which require bloodletting to imbue the blade.

First level Blood Hunters don’t even get silvered weapons for their starting gear, poor sods!

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So that was my short week!  Which one of these did you guys enjoy most?  Have you done any cool sketches for May Sketch A Day or Mermay this week (or seen any?)  Share in comments!

Next week, I’ll be on vacation at the beach, which I haven’t seen in well…years!  I expect to be pretty AFK for awhile and sneaking internet when I can, so I may be slow!  My stream schedule is on hold for now till I return on June 1st.  Hope you all don’t have too much fun without me!  

I hope to return with more enamel pin mockups to share and a refreshed mind.  See ya after!

– Ang

May Sketch A Day Week 3 – Tieflings Galore!

This week, my muse followed my Dungeons & Dragons character, Anko, down the inspiration rabbithole this time!  I have a lot of behind-the-scenes deadline to meet this week, which meant an ‘easy’ week where I didn’t have to think too much, just have pure fun exploring this character who’s already fairly established in my brain.

It’s felt good to define Anko even more thoroughly, since I’ve been playing her for years now!  She’s had a really satisfying arc from being a timid young Tiefling girl to blossoming into a fully capable mage. She deserved more art than she’s gotten from me, honestly!

Day 14

This week’s journey began with gesture sketches and trying to discover what pose worked best for showing off Anko’s small demure horns for a formal concept chart.  I needed an angle that would show enough dimension in the spirals so that I could properly show off any danglies and decorations and ended up with a classical head turn.

My first horn decoration ideas were simple bejeweled tips and a studded cloth wrap inspired by how sacred cows are adorend in India.  Inspiration leads you to unexpected places sometimes!

Day 15

Some days are slower than others when you’re tired, but I managed a single variation with lots of braids and dainty filigree horn caps!  I love the way the braids wrapping around give a more elegant transition between hair and horn.

Day 16

I explored two concepts in mind, including flower garlands around the horns and gold-dusted or painted horns.  I was surprised how many colors this character looks good in and how much I loved the flowers!  They were my favorite look until the next set came along.  Even if I don’t go with them, I think if I ever have a need to depict Anko in a marriage or spring ceremony that the flowers would be perfect!

Day 17

A productive few days! I honestly thought I was done with concepts, but then I got the idea to combine my previous day’s concepts into a new variations, plus try the cloth wraps, but with chain taking the shape of the wraps.  I also loved the long elegant shapes of the dangling flowers I found while reference hunting and had to try them on horns!

Day 18

I needed another easy day and laying in flat colors on Anko’s dice arrangement from last week obliged!  Color brings all the golden goodness of baked goods to life, doesn’t it?

Day 20

After all this concepting, I wanted to work up one of my fave designs into a more fleshed out sketch!  The result is this lovely little portrait which was also great gesture and anatomy practice.  I had a little help from Senshistock with the pose as well!  Highly recommend her awesome stock for idea-gathering.

Concept Compilation

I’m not sure I made it any easier for myself to choose a formal look for Anko because they all have something I like about them!  Which ones did you guys like best?

Did you draw anything for May Sketch A Day this week? Share your favorite in comments so I can see and enjoy it too!  Or if not, let me know which of my sketches you enjoyed best.

More soon!  I’ve been working on a collection of enamel pin design sketches I’m so excited to share once I have them in a more finished spot!

– Ang

May Sketch A Day – Week 2: D&D, Tangled, & Harse!

See week 1’s collection here!

What a weird combination May Sketch A Day week 2 has been!  The week started out strong with another portrait of Khalara exploring her glowing silk moth dress concept.

And then my muse went bonkers with my D&D Tiefling and randomness!  But hey that’s half the fun with this event.  Enjoy the randomness!

Day 6 – Mothglow Portrait

This ended up becoming a little more than a sketch, but I was obligated as soon as I created that mothglow dress design from last week to work it up on the character!

Khalara continues to evolve from her Exalted look and is starting to look more like her own character now, though I’m still giving a nod to the original character’s flaming hair with her henna-dyed tips. 

Kalara had a hand scar while this Khalara has dyed hands to cover stains from her life as a slave. It’s been really intriguing to translate this character to my own story world and preserve what I like about her RPG concept!

I played around with the idea that the silk also has iridescent properties in normal lighting. I may have to work this one up to final sometime, as I really enjoy this concept for a painting! She’s come so far since my first sketch of her last week.

Day 7 – Adira

I took a totally indulgent day to draw some fan art of Adira from the Tangled animated series. The first time I saw this hulking, badass, cocky woman and her amazing character design, I just KNEW I had to draw her!

May Sketch A Day was the perfect excuse to finally draw her after many instances of ‘dang she’s cool’ when I saw her in the show.

Sidenote, this was also the first time I noticed the character wore mismatched earrings, something I never noticed until I was dissecting her character design in order to draw her!

Day 8 – 10 – Anko Head Variations

After playing my Tiefling Warlock Anko for the past few years, it was about time I decided what her horns looked like under her hair buns!  For those who haven’t met my D&D character yet, she’s a young Tiefling from a ghetto who grew up in her family’s bakery.  She ends up adventuring and learning about a legacy of dark magic she never knew of as a Warlock.

She ended up with cute little ‘cinnamon roll’ style horns which seem to fit her themes and the shape of her hair buns.  The shorter straighter horns are also quite nice. Stashing them for later!

Day 11 – Harse

This is what happens when I try to quickly draw a horse from memory. Anatomy from Hell and a horn because I only ever learned to draw horses so I could draw unicorns!

I can’t look at how hilariously bad this is without laughing so hard, I cry. May Harse bring you a laugh today instead of nightmares!

 Day 12 – Anko’s Dice

I was inspired by the beautiful dice arrangements of SweetDelilahs to make a similar one for my Tiefling gal, Anko!  She loves baking and the dark arts (but let’s hope she doesn’t mix up food with her spell components!)

How was your week?  Are any of you taking on a May art challenge?  Share your favorite one in the comments!  Or if not, which sketch of mine did you enjoy the most from this week?

If you’re on Discord and are one of my Patrons, you can see these sketches a day before I post them by connecting your Discord to Patreon!  You can see how to do that here.

Can’t wait to see what next week brings for May Sketch A Day and share more progress on the enamel pins as well!

– Ang

Nov 2018 Sketch Collection

I nearly forgot to share November’s sketches!  I did something a little unorthodox and combined two sketch requests together into one, which was a thing I hadn’t thought about, but that I enjoyed doing!

The Monk and the Druid

For the above sketch, Mei and Nansaidh are back kicking butt!  You can watch this sketch come to life at the recording of the livestream here.

Queen of Foxes

The next sketch in the batch was gift art for the talented Emybun, of her character, Irys.  The request was to draw her in queenly attire and I was more than happy to oblige with haute couture galore!

You can watch a stream of this sketch as it was made here.

I hope you enjoyed this little collection of what my Sketch Collectors have challenged me with.  I’m looking forward to seeing what December will bring!

– Ang

D&D Portrait – Anko Xelkova

And now for something completely different!  I thought you all might enjoy seeing a character portrait I completed over Thanksgiving break.  With all of the craziness of this year, playing Dungeons & Dragons with my friends every other weekend has been an important escape for my husband and I!

My husband is the Dungeon Master of our merry little band, while I play this gal, a Tiefling Warlock of the Fiend.  Anko grew up in a Tiefling ghetto where many of her race consider it taboo to practice magic, as their mage ancestors once dabbled with fiends, resulting in their Tiefling ‘abomination’.  

That was never enough for Anko, who was always curious about how magic could improve the lives of her and her loved ones.  She also enjoys baking and helps her family with their small bakery to keep their poor neighborhood fed.  Her adventures with the party have helped her escape her fear of racism and gain confidence as a fledgling mage (now a level 20 through their epic world-saving adventures!).

Anko has been a delight to play as I’ve grown with her as she’s matured into a stronger person. It gives me hope I can do the same for myself in real life and bring happiness and comfort to others as well the way she does!

I drew the original sketch back in January and never got around to finishing it till now.

And here’s a detail shot so we can appreciate those freckles!

I know this isn’t like the other art I share here, but I figured you all might enjoy it anyways!  I’ve also shared more in-depth WIPs over on my Patreon Discord server, which all Patrons should have access to.

Everyone needs something that refreshes their creative well and tabletop RPG’s have been that therapy for me since I was a high school kid.

Do you guys play games?  Which ones?  What kind of character do you play?  If not, what’s your creative outlet?  Feel free to geek out with me!  I love to hear about this kind of stuff.

PS.

Are you a $5+ Patron?  Do you want a PSD file of this drawing to study?  Let me know in comments and I can share it for you guys, but only if there’s actually some demand for it.