Howdy kiddos, and welcome to a series of character illustrations, that starts right here!!

/!\  MORE OR LESS SMALL WARNING!  /!\

these chapters are all super long.... i will take the time to type out their backstory, meaning these chapters will also include maps, smaller sketches or family members or places, and sometimes two or three panels of a comic.

so be prepared for a long ride, and if ya wanna just scroll down to the pretty picture, i do not mind at all ^-^

Now, I would advise you to go read the chapter beforehand for a bit of context, but essentially, I just took the boys outta this drawing:

and went ahead to illustrate them, once they became older, finished training and were fully fledged paladins.

so without further ado... let's take a look at our first victim: Heledhanar

Heledhanar is a charming lad, incredibly polite, well behaved and mature. This is mainly because of his upbringing.

He was born into a noble house in the Bloodhounds Capitol, called Bolria. A place famous for having the most dense populated area on the continent, the largest city in the world and the highest  difference between the upper- and lower classes.

Heledhanar is the youngest of three children, his eldest brother Raevon already an adult and away from home as he was born, whilst his other brother, Rivalchon, grew up with him and supported Heledhanar, as their parents were too busy to give the little child the attention it needed.
Heledhanar developed a sense of admiration for his brother Raevon, who he only saw on the holy day of blood and at some family gatherings, as he managed to break free of the families reputation and status, and make a name for himself, as a paladin. Heledhanar never regarded him as a brother, but more as a distant role model, whilst Rivalchon got the brother status all for himself.

As the time came around for Rivalchon to leave home for the compulsory military service, Heledhanar felt rather lonely and filled that gap with friends, nights at the bar or the club and long trips into the filthier areas of the city, often staying away for two or three days at a time.
When Rivalchon finally returned, he had changed. As the Bloodhounds had some political issues with a western tribe, Rivalchon was sent out to defend the clan, as most other young citizens were.

The happy reunion that Heledhanar was expecting turned into a crashing disappointment. After some time his brother accustomed to the normal life again, but he still was a changed person, which terrified Heledhanar to the bone. Especially since Raevon and Rivalchon grew closer and talked more often via letters or calls, Heledhanar was worried, that the military conscription might change him as well.

And so, he decided to go for the other option.

You see, as the bloodhounds are the nation of war, are governed by the military and are the primary defensive body of the continent, every person who resides in the clan must have gone through some sort of military training. Usually that means, that after you finish school, you take a decade of free time, before joining the military for a few hundred years, and then going to university or starting a job.
The alternative though, is that instead of joining the military of the state, youngsters are also able to enlist in the army of other clans or join military organizations, as long as they provided the necessary paperwork.

This was why Raevon joined the paladins in the first place, and after having seen how Rivalchon has changed, Heledhanar decided to go after his role model and join the Paladins himself.

After going through the trial twice, he finally managed to enlist into training, more than glad to have dodged the gruesome bloodhound military, and excited to maybe get to know Raevon better through the experience. His parents on the other hand, didn't find his decision too great however. In their eyes not having joined the bloodhound military made the family look like cowards, unwilling to pay the right service to their nation, and as their income heavily relied on their status within society... they weren't the happiest.

Heledhanar didn't care too much though. His parents were there and they loved him, but never quite seemed to properly care about him as a person. That's what Rivalchon was there for, and since Rivalchon encouraged his decision, Heledhanar had all the family acceptance that he needed.

After traveling across the entire continent to reach the headquarters in the angelwing clan, he did indeed have his doubts, but the fear of disappointing his brothers by simply returning back home, kept him going until he met the first other trainees.

Heledhanar was one of the trainees to join the party rather late in the timeframe of arrival, as his journey was so long and he was heavily delayed when traveling over the scorching fireforgean deserts and then the freezing mountains of the frosthills.
He nearly became instant friends with Dolthedir from the deathbolts, as they coincidentally had the same haircut and shirt on, and immediately had a vibe going on ^-^

So roughly ten minutes after arrival, he found himself a room partner, a guide who showed him around the basic places and someone to introduce him to the other trainees.

(didn't draw him yet, so just have this first concept i made with the league avatar creator for now ^-^"")

anyways!

so Heledhanar and Dolthedir became good friends and shared a room. As training began he also got to know Bronwechanar, Bothanar and Uilosson a lot better and they became really good friends, with Heledhanar kinda being the established "parent" of the group, whilst Bronwechanar and Bothanar were up to all kinda of bullshit.

Dolthedir on the other hand found his own group of friends, and even though he and Heledhanar didn't do much outside of training and sharing a room, they remained real good friends.

As time went on, Heledhanar started to miss his home and family less and less, and now that he had friends and discovered different hobbies and passions of his, he started to despise them. Feeling more abandoned by them, the longer he stayed away.
He also grew quite a lot closer to Uilosson, and as a result of that to their roommate Gathrodor, quite often hanging out with them and being the only people he trusted his emotions and issues to.

After the first two centuries of training were over and the trainees had to choose their field of choice, Heledhanar joined the swordsmen, specializing in the offensive type a century later. Through having had the same classes with Cevrond throughout the entire duration of the training, the two became pretty good friends, and kept in contact even during holidays and after graduation.
Because one of his hobbies turned out to be dancing, he started to slowly develop a certain style in fighting, combining some dance moves with traditional techniques, which earned him the nickname "Razor" ... but also "Ballerina"

When graduation then came along, Heledhanar decided to embrace that feature of him, choosing "Razorblade" to be his official paladin title, before being sent off to a quarter in the east of the bloodhounds, to finalize his training and start working as a paladin.

at first it was an extremely weird experience, to be separated from his fellow trainees and to be addressed by his paladin-name, but he got used to it faster than he thought.

he also had a very warm welcome and a pleasant surprise waiting for him, since the lovingly nicknamed "bloody nose" was the quarter his brother was also stationed in.
the two slowly but surely got properly acquainted with each other, developing that brotherly relationship that has been lacking between them.
together they often went out on commissions or trained with each other, and Raevon Bloodmoon often took his younger sibling to the pub, so they could meet up with Raevons friends.

overall Heledhanar developed to be a confident, strong and skilled Swordsman, and it didn't take him long to be promoted. Things seemed to be looking up for him, especially when some missions required several clans to work on one issue, meaning he got to work together with his old friends from training again.

but... you guys know me.

this is going way to well to be a story of mine.

so basically, this new independence and respect he gained, through doing what he loves with the people that are important to him, came crashing down on one day.

being a paladin is a dangerous profession. the trainers had warned the trainees about the possible dangers, injuries and high chances of death in every lesson they had. and heledhanar sure has lost some of his friends, as everyone in the order had.
but when he decided to pull through with a rather hazardous operation, he fully grasped what that meant.

it was one of the small swimming fortresses of the west, that had climbed onto the surface one night and posed a danger to the cities around it. as this was an issue of a grander scheme, clockworks, fireforges, stonecrushes and bloodhounds were called in for assistance, to take the mechanical monster out and ensure the safety of the people.

was it dangerous? for sure. the paladins had never fought a swimming fortress on land before and weren't sure how prepared the tribe inhabiting it was.
so as a small group of young, expendable experts, Heledhanar, his brother, Cevrond and three other paladins, were to infiltrate the fortress, make a quick check in on the danger and report back, so the officers had a better chance at planning.

sadly, the southern clans heftily underestimated the western tribes.. i'll spare you the details for now, since i still wanna write a book including this stuff, but long story short:
one member of the team got captured by the guards, another member got accidentally crushed to death in the machine room, causing the mechanisms to halt for a moment, as the bones and flesh of the young lad got stuck in the metal.
through this small pause, pressure built up in a chamber, an alarm went of. and the machine room blew up, tearing a hole in the side of the fortress and sending the remaining four paladins flying.

Heledhanar broke his arm and some ribs from the impact, whilst Cevrond got caught on a piece of scorching metal, cutting a deep gash from his chest to his foot, also breaking his leg on the landing. Raevon didn't end up much better and the other lad didn't look to good either, covered in blood and instantly unconscious.

Heledhanar panicked, seeing how some more explosions blew holes into the fortress... none of the western folks seemed to get wounded though, telling Razorblade, that they must have retreated somewhere safe.
And being the loyal, stubborn dickhead he is, he decided to see if he could fetch out their other companion, before the guards got out of their safe spot. To everyones surprise (including himself) he actually found their lost friend, who had been abandoned in a hallway. Some form of wound cost the lad his arm, and whilst Heledhanar didn't know if the guards cut it off, or if it resulted out of an explosion, he wasn't eager to find out.

To the best of his abilities he dragged himself and his comrade out of the fortress, that was now buzzing, with loud, screeching noises of bending metal echoing through the construct.
And just as Heledhanar thought that he'd make it out again, he felt something hit his back and burn into his skin. the impact caused him to fall down, pain immobilizing him.

In the end Cevrond was the one, who dragged both him and their companion back to a makeshift camp, where the other dude was sitting, barely conscious, bandages everywhere... and that was the point that our Razorblade blacked out.

As he woke up, they were still in the camp. It has gotten dark outside, Cevrond was sitting next to a tiny attempt at a fire, slowly picking metal splinters and dirt out of his wounds. the other two were lying on the ground, sleeping.
Heledhanar looked at Cev, who just looked back with a grim and sorrowful expression.

"Where is Raevon?" He mumbled, which caused Cevrond to break off the eye contact and concentrate on his wound again.

And there we have it folks. That day, Paladin Bloodmoon sacrificed himself to save his little brother, and it scarred Razorblade forever. In this moment he seemed to have matured a few years, every bit of pride he had being obliterated and his otherwise polite and calculated nature turned into a grumpy, arrogant and depressed version of him.

The trainees that visited the Quarter after that, knew him as a strict, orderly and grumpy person, knowing that he was skilled and had experience, the quarter made him a mentor to a few trainees, who all learnt quite a bit about him, but always feared what he might do, if something didn't go to his liking.

His attitude did get better over time, but similarly to his brother Rivalchon, he was never the same again.

WOAH... that took a lot longer to write than i thought ^-^""

Either way, I hope you liked the backstory so far.... but since this is an artbook, let's talk a bit about the picture >w<

firstly i went ahead with the rough sketch. the pose was supposed to be confident, elegant, slightly provocative, so i went with the good old "side glare, whilst unsheathing the sword" pose >w<

When it came to the design, i wanted to take the messy, spikey yet stylish hair over, but in a way that seemed more fit for battle. I went with a high ponytail, but since that alone looked weird, i added a dramatic little fringe thingy on the side ^-^ (so much to "more fit for battle")

clothing-wise i wanted to show the partially asian, partially european inspirations here. It took quite a while until I figured something out, but ended up with a one-sided vest with a cape... yeah it sounds weird and stuff, but the idea was pretty darn crazy and it looks a lot better than i thought it would xD

generally i just wanted to show his personality a lot more within the details. He cares a lot about his appearance, but tries to look like he didn't put too much effort into it. As dancing became a main element in his fighting tactics, he also prefers clothing that isn't too tight and allows for a lot of movement... also never passing a chance to have something dramatically flowing around him, when he takes a sharp turn.

The main colour of the bloodhounds is red, whilst it's main metal is bronze. The fancy thing about the paladins is, that every clan tried a lot to appear in their national colours, meaning i was allowed to work with my favourite types of palettes: monochromatic ones.

So yeah!

Lots of red, lots of bronze, everything looking about as fancy as it could, whilst also looking more simple than it should!

uh... so i guess here's the final result then?

Hope you guys didn't mind the ages long backstory up top and like the drawing that came out in the end! I personally really do like it a lot... drawing bloodhounds is always so satisfying, since their whole deal is that they are big, beautiful, elegant yet ruthless and brutal.

>>cuddles, pats, wraps in blanket and gives some hot chocolate<<

damn.... now that i wrote so much at the beginning i have no clue what to write here now, so i guess i'll just end it here. farewell kiddos, and remember to take care of yourselves!