Heyho kiddos!

So... most of you here should know my two OCs Ruindir and Cevrond. If not... then you must be new!! In that case: welcome!!! Super happy you found this little artbook of mine :D

Either way, the OGs probably are familiar with this piece I drew last year in April, since I finally wanted to draw my two boys together in a picture:

And.. well... even though I was indeed kinda proud of it at the time, I pretty quickly improved and found that this picture just looks creepy at some point. I have no clue what it is, but especially Ruindirs teeth kinda haunt me in my nightmares.

So, since this is already over a year old and I've been wanting to redraw this for ages now, here we go!

I started with this rough, initial sketch... well... actually I started with a different initial sketch that I didn't export, but either way, I decided to switch up the poses quite a bit.
Plan was to keep Ru talking, but this time with a bit more life and expression, whilst Cev is just passively chilling, listening and... uh... yeah. Ru is active in here, Cev is more passive, and to keep something from the original, I decided to keep this sorta dynamic.

Next up it came to the lineart, and especially when it came to the clothing I wanted to change even more things up, simply because the characters developed quite a bit so far and I'm not anymore the biggest fan of the clothing I designed at the time.

So for Cev I decided to kinda merge these two outfits together, in order for it to still look like the original, but more relaxed and like something Cevrond would wear in the scenario I had imagined.

As for Ruindir... well, I dug through some of his outfits and didn't really find anything that tickled my fancy, until I remembered that horrendous picture I drew this april, where I totally fucked up Ruindirs face, which kinda ruined the whole picture for me, even though it's actually really good.

So yeah.... I remembered it, and the outfit that came along with it, so I decided to just go ahead and put Ruindir in a more simplified version of it, since... well it is kinda over the top and would've taken ages to render... also it makes zero sense for Ruindir to be walking along in full on "4. Holy Guadian, Heir to the Fireforgean Throne, battlemage" attire, whilst he's just complaining to Cev about a mission he was on, whilst Cev is just thinking to himself "Man, Ruindir, you're such a fucking idiot."

And then... well, when it came to the Faces and lighting-feel I wanted to have, I just dug out them mermay-illustrations and tried to get a similar feel again.

Anyways, so I kinda worked through all them pictures, also digging out some really old ones from last year, as references for moles and piercings, and then came along with the finished lineart:

Not gonna lie, most of them hands went really well, except Ruindir's left one.... I kept just getting the angle wrong and it never looked right, until I found a pretty neat reference and just... copied the hand to the best of my abilities...

When it came to Cev, the hand in the belt was no problem whatsoever, but then the other arm was kinda a struggle, since I had absolutely no clue what to do with it.
I ended up going more with the original here and just letting is dangle down, but also rest on his leg, since I wanted to get another hand in there >w<

Welp, colours were pretty simple, got my palettes down and figured out scars, moles and tattoos, also adding all the necessary patterns and mising details to the clothing.

And then it came to the shading. I did indeed have quite some fun with it, simply because... well... cell-shading is a ton of fun and it felt amazing to be able to compare my current shading and style with the old piece, simply because it's insane how far I've come.

Idk... I really like the direction my art has taken in the last year, even though I still need to figure out how I want to proceed with my highlights, since those are a bit... flat, if one could say so...

Either way, after I had that shading down, I made myself a new document and finally finished everything up with overlays and a proper background.

Well..... and... uh... I think I overdid it a bit with the overlays, since Cevs hair kinda melts into his skincolou rat times, and Rus hair is a bit very much brighter than I'd like it to be, but nonetheless I am actually proud of the result, and love Ru and his expression turned out, and how Cev looks sorta like I imagined him, whilst also looking extremely similar to Feredir.

AND (nearly forgot this one haha) I reworked Ruindirs tattoos again, and... ah... so happy with the new design of them. The first one was too simple, the second one was too complicated, but I have the feeling that this one will stick for a long while ^-^

Aaand... here's a small side-by-side comparison of the two again ^-^

Argh, I love the new one so much more QwQ

Anyways, that's all I got for ya today!

>>cuddles and pats you, before wrapping you in a blanket burrito and giving you a warm beverage and cookies<<

Hope you're doing well, take care of yourselves and drink enough!
Maybe, if you have some spare time lying around, you'd like to look at some other drawings of mine, or even write a little comment! I really appreciate every one of you reading this and would love if you would say hi >w<