Cosmere Fanart - Sketches and Works-in-Progress

[Swimmingly]

A panel is missing. That panel is Kaladin on his knees, rain falling around him, arms raised to the sky, screaming WHHHHHYYYY???!!!!!

And creepy rainspren with little question marks over their heads looking at him quizzically.

[Botanica]

Oooh, shirtless Renarin and Kadolin!!! I'm undergoing a heart attack *o* Please bring MORE amazing work!

And a not-request-like request, could you please draw a smirking Wit? (If you have time and interest) I'd love to see that =) (Or have I missed something?)

[Argent]

As you already know, Brandon (and I kid you not, I sat for some full 5 seconds wanting to type "Dalinar" for his name...) was super excited about Where is my Chull? You should see a photo of it on his blog sometime in the near future. He LOVED the chicken

[Delightful]

ExMachina these are hilarious and amazing!! :D :D

[ExMachina]

Aleksiel: Haha, thank you! I have a mighty need to draw Dalinar and Kaladin together (them calling each other Sir and Captain, dat respect T.T) so hopefully a sketch/comic will happen sooner rather than later!

 

Swimmingly: xD Oh man, I'd forgotten that it was raining during that sequence. Sad Kaladin in the rain... and yeah, rainspren are creeeepy.

 

Bota: Oh no, please don't have a heart attack! *resuscitates* But thanks. I have drawn a tiny Wit for FNCC before, but I definitely want to do a larger drawing of him smirking. So will do (I also want to expand on those hug sketches I did a while ago) once I knock out more of my Cosmere queue. :3

 

Argent: And I was super excited to hear about/watch his reaction when they were posted! Roshar's chickens make for some great fanart, I have to say. (also Brandon is totally a fellow Highprince of Dads, mixing his name up with Dalinar is perfectly understandable)

 

Delightful: Thank ye kindly! Glad you're enjoying my silly doodles. :>

[FeatherWriter]

The finished product of WMC? was amaaaazing! I swear, Maki, you're the most amazing person ever!

[Argent]

The finished product of WMC? was amaaaazing! I swear, Maki, you're the most amazing person ever!

 

Yea, when I saw it during the signing I was all like "Whaaaaaaat, this was meant to be an actual book?"

[ExMachina]

Feather: Thank you!  Everyone involved in WMC deserves so much praise, I'm just the lucky(/crazy) person that had all this time off to spend drawing, heh. I can't express how impressed and proud I am of the fandom for coming together to make something so amazing. In addition to all of the gorgeous character/creature art we received, Silver particularly contributed so much... she painted all of my lineart during a school week, seriously dang.

 

Argent: Haha yeah! I think it was a big motivator for all participating that we had a deadline to produce something physical to give to Brandon.  

 

So yeah, Where's My Chull? is a thing that happened. Basically a bunch of us decided on the 14th to create a Stormlight Archive take on Terry Pratchett's Where's My Cow? to give to Mr. Sanderson himself at the signing in Chicago yesterday.

 

I ended up drawing... 15 sets of lineart for the framing illustrations, featuring Dalinar, Navani, and baby Renarin.

 

 

And then BeneathSilverStars transformed them with her incredible watercolor-style digital painting... I had so much fun collaborating with her. :3 She punched them up to essentially professional-quality children's book illustrations under such a crazy time crunch, it's ridiculous!

 

http://beneathsilverstars.tumblr.com/post/79840636403

http://beneathsilverstars.tumblr.com/post/79947185505

http://beneathsilverstars.tumblr.com/post/80043201287

 

I also contributed art for...

 

the cover

 

Kaladin + Syl

 

Dalinar

 

the Stormfather (though this is a vastly revised version... the beard wasn't in time for print sadly D: )

 

An excellent week of hanging out and collaborating with super cool people on something Cosmere-related... I couldn't have asked for a better vacation.

Edited March 24, 2014 by ExMachina

[Delightful]

....we have an image of Roshar's chickens? Is this publicly available?

 

Edit: Didn't see the next page when I posted that. OMG BABY RENARIN IS SO ADORABLE!!!!!!  (I beat Feather to saying that!   ) Reaching out for the friendly chasmfiend! and Navani reading him a bedtime story! (wait. Is that Navani or shshshshsh?)

Dalinar is just perfect pure awesomeness. Posture, colouring, that scary expression, the massive sword....perfect.

 

May I ask why Kal's spear always has that ribbon tied around the top? Wouldn't it get in the way in a fight?

Edited March 24, 2014 by Delightful

[Argent]

....we have an image of Roshar's chickens? Is this publicly available?

 

Edit: Didn't see the next page when I posted that. OMG BABY RENARIN IS SO ADORABLE!!!!!!  (I beat Feather to saying that!   ) Reaching out for the friendly chasmfiend! and Navani reading him a bedtime story! (wait. Is that Navani or shshshshsh?)

Dalinar is just perfect pure awesomeness. Posture, colouring, that scary expression, the massive sword....perfect.

 

May I ask why Kal's spear always has that ribbon tied around the top? Wouldn't it get in the way in a fight?

 

That's a chull there, not a chasmfiend. Though no-so-baby Renarin did jump in front of an actual chasmfiend rather readily...

 

I love that he has darker hair on the cover. Incorporating feedback FTW!

[Delightful]

That's a chull there, not a chasmfiend. Though no-so-baby Renarin did jump in front of an actual chasmfiend rather readily...

 

....I'll pretend I meant that.... ....

[FeatherWriter]

Hehehe, I've been squeeing over how adorable baby Renarin is for pretty much this whole week! And Silver's colors are goooooorgeous too. I love the almost watercolor quality she gives them all. 

 

I know Megan posted video of Brandon's reaction to the book, and it's pretty awesome. I'm not sure if you found the chicken picture, Delightful, but that one was drawn by Ellie (about whom I continue to be unable to shut up.) Here, have a chicken.

 

Also Argent, thank for reminding everyone that Renarin rushes out into danger multiple times during the books to try to save his family members because that is a thing that everyone should always remember and no one should ever forget because Renarin is brave and wonderful and courageous and... *is smothered before she can continue rambling*

[ExMachina]

Delightful: "Eeeee baby Renarin" was basically the unofficial WMC motto.

 

And the lady reading is Navani. We chose to use her and de-age Renarin for the story even though it's completely impossible... I imagine it would be kind of hard to draw Shshshshsh.

 

Glad you like the Dalinar art, I was trying to make him look like a boss. xD

 

RE: random spear cloth - It's in Whelan's depictions but I'm not sure exactly what purpose it serves (since it's definitely not in the spot or wound around enough to be holding the spearhead in place)... I'm no expert when it comes to polearms though, I simply choose to include it as well because of the rule of cool. ^^;

 

Argent: Woo, incorporating feedback! Every artist who collaborated on this thing has bookmarks and notes about character descriptions and double checked with the chat when they weren't sure. We take canon very seriously when it comes to appearances apparently... Like re-reading Shallan's scene for that stick drawing from earlier... yeah. Sadly, there weren't actually any details on the size/color/shape of the best new character in WoR, so I had to wing it.

 

Feather: I'm glad that everyone enjoyed seeing Baby Renarin as much as I did drawing him, haha. Little spectacles are the best. 8)

 

Ellie's chicken is perfection! I still laugh every time I see it.

 

And yeah, everyone should check out all the character/creature art that various fanartists created for WMC... all of them are so spot on, it made my week to have all this amazing SA art popping up on my dash.

Edited March 24, 2014 by ExMachina

[Awesomeness Summoned]

RE: random spear cloth - It's in Whelan's depictions but I'm not sure exactly what purpose it serves (since it's definitely not in the spot or wound around enough to be holding the spearhead in place)... I'm no expert when it comes to polearms though, I simply choose to include it as well because of the rule of cool. ^^;

I'm no expert as well but I decided to do some research. For the most part I didn't come up with many results. I did find THIS guide to making spears and it seems like every design ends up with strands dangling off the spear. Usually its a result of the spearhead attachment process but that might have over time turned into an ornamental aspect they add which would explain why Kaladin's doesn't seem to be serving a purpose.

Since research didn't produce many results, on the wild speculation side I do know that adding tails of cloth allows objects to be buffeted less by wind and air. If you put a long tail on a kite for instance it will fly much straighter and will be blown around by the wind much less. Take off the tail and it zips around with every gust of wind. Perhaps the strand of cloth is added to give slightly more accuracy when swinging it. The spearhead sways and vibrates less when swinging through the air quickly. Yes, I know, pretty flimsy but the best I could come up with.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Awesomeness Summoned

[Natans]

Just passing to say the customary  "WOW you are Amazing *insert new drawings descriptions here* post ".

 

PS: I really liked yout Dalinar Plate drawing.

 

Any chance that you do a Syl Shardspear? Oddly nobody are giving Syl X Kal fight duo any love =) (Syl really have a tender spot I my heart =) )

[Chrono]

Can I just say.... AWESOME?! I love your artist style, ExMachina, and your depictions of Kaladin are always so great! Also, little baby Renarin is adorable. Very much so.

 

I'd like to see your rendition of Shallan and Kaladin in the chasms. Doing whatever. Shouting at each other, in the highstorm, fighting the chasmfiend, making terrible puns, whatever. Keep it coming!

 

Also, your picture of Kaladin and his parents made me want to cry. THAT IS QUALITY, MY FRIEND.

 

Ight, I'll stop fangirling now.

[ExMachina]

jasonpenguin asked earlier about a drawing of Lightsong. Cosmere chat actually gave me an awesome prompt for a scene featuring him and Llarimar and I'm working on that now! But I realized that I didn't have a super strong image of Lightsong's face so I did a quick bust of him to nail down his features:

 

I still don't know what his eye color is exactly though... OTL I also need to figure out clothes, because I remember so little about fashion on Nalthis. ^^;

 

And here's a smirking Wit for Botanica!

 

Awesomeness Summoned: I looked at that how-to guide on spear making too! xD But yeah, nothing there to explain the random cloth tied to Kaladin's spear... the idea that it went from functional to ornamental is definitely a good theory though. And increasing stability is as plausible as any explanation I've read so far.

 

Natans: Haha, thanks. :3 Ohhh yeah, a pic of Syl as a spear would be so cool... Kal/Syl duo really is awesome. Heck, the bonded spren so far are all great... I really like Pattern too and have to draw Shallan + him at some point.

 

Chrono: Thank you! I definitely want to do something with Shallan and Kaladin in the chasms (in fact, one of the first things I sketched when I finished WoR was Shallan during their exchange about sorrow...). Such a great set of chapters... I need to push through and just draw more Shallan instead of sticking with what's easy (men are just easier for me to draw than women generally).

 

(yesss, let's all get sad about Kaladin + family )

 

...I guess the takeaway is there are too many cool things to draw and that I need to give Shallan more love. She's actually my favorite character in the SA. :S

Edited March 28, 2014 by ExMachina

[Argent]

I believe Lightsong is wearing some sort of robe-like garment, but I am not sure.

And this is sooo not how I imagined Wit...

Edited March 29, 2014 by Argent

[Delightful]

And this is sooo not how I imagined Wit...

 

Same here. Actually, I thought Wit was quite short until WoR described him as tall.Now I don't know how to imagine him.

@awesomeness @exmachina thanks for looking that up about the spears! I suppose if I'd been less lazy I could have saves you the work. Thanks!

Lightsong looks pretty cool . I think each Returned wore their clothing differently, but in their own colours.

[Botanica]

Thanks so much for the Wit piece!!!!! XD I saw it on tumblr and must post my appreciation here again! He looks awesome with that smile and costume

I agree that Wit is a very difficult character to depict… (more difficult: Hoid himself…) But I like to see Wit art because every artist has his or her own unique rendition Does anyone know how old Hoid makes himself look like on Roshar? I always imagine he is probably in his thirties.

Ah Lightsong! I find myself unable to visualize him well but your drawing sheds some light on that. Nice work!

[ExMachina]

Argent: Fair enough! Plus, I definitely have a tendency to go for close-cropped too often when "short hair" is mentioned in a character description. /biased-against-long-hair-on-guys

 

Delightful: It's cool, I was curious about the spear stuff too and it never hurts to have more information on how weapons work.

 

Botanica: Glad you like the Wit drawing! And yeah, I really do enjoy seeing different artists' takes on him... especially since Hoid himself changes appearance so dramatically from book to book. To be honest, I definitely prefer your design of him and JustInkOnPaper's illustration from WMC, but this is how I imagined him when reading.

 

I don't remember any explicit descriptions of how old he looks in WoK or WoR, just Adolin's "you're too old for her."  I default to him being in his 30s as well.

 

 

RE: Lightsong's clothing. He's described as wearing a very complicated wrap (so that he needs assistance when putting it on) with clasps at the front... I'm looking at late Roman Empire fashion as inspiration to try and figure something out (thanks to EHyde for the suggestion :3).

 

 

 

OK, onto the random art...

 

A piece of merchandise that needs to happen (I would like glyphs for these words someday, lol):

 

Lin Davar (this guy doesn't get a mug, obviously):

 

 

lineart of Dalinar and Gavilar that I plan to color at some point:

click here for a larger, less cropped version, warning - contains blood

[Delightful]

Dalinar and Gavilar....ouch my feels! :'( :'( :'(

 

Lin Davar is storming creepy, which suits him perfectly. *shudders*. *flees*.

[Argent]

Yea, a toga makes much more sense - the Court of Gods is very much the Greek (or Roman) Pantheon. So of course they would wear togas.

[Haniqi]

Dear ExMachina, I really appreciate your work, I think it's awesome. Really, really nice.

 

So I'll leave a comment but please take it maybe as a suggestion (or maybe not, it's your imagination which guides the pen):

When I think of Wit (not Hoid) I imagine a tall, slender guy with a wiry facial expression without being too muscular. I would think him to be more of a scholar-like stature in a uniform (thinking of various scenes where he is described and it made me think "why is he wearing that sword?" - for me, it just didn't really fit to Wit, maybe because he's so much "over" the normal/physical actions in TWoK). I know that his age is difficult to tell, but his knowledge makes me want some tiny wrinkles in his face, not at all to make him look old, but for some life experience.

For the uniform: I did actually imagine the inner collar exactly as you did it, but I find the outer collar too big and protruding. Maybe a straight-cut, tight, not-so-voguish uniform. Plus maybe I would even give Wits uniform a little worn look, still being pitch-black. (I hope there's no discrepancy here.)

 

Probably it's most difficult to get a right shot of those characters that are not described so often. The vision might be so different for various readers. So what you do is great work!

 

One last thing - if you ever happen to look for new to toics: I'm a Zahel fan. Would be so awesome to have a good drawing of him!

[ExMachina]

I started a new tumblr blog with Silver (lending her immense coloring talents to my messy lineart <3) for Cosmere-related comics and we've just posted the first one featuring Vin and Elend:

 

http://cosmerecomics.tumblr.com/post/81962121051/elend-is-quite-the-charmer

 

Here's hoping that we can actually keep up the pace of doing one of these every week. *crosses fingers*

 

Delightful: I'm sorry, I keep drawing all these sad things. xD I'm glad you get a creepy feeling from Lin, mission accomplished.

 

Argent: Yep! It's quite a brilliant suggestion from EHyde.

 

Haniqi: Thank you for the kind words and especially for the very thoughtful and detailed comment! I love getting feedback like that, it's always interesting to get insight into how other readers picture a character and why they formed that particular image.

 

I really like the suggestion of tightening up and changing his uniform to differentiate him more from the Rosharans. I basically defaulted to my Kholin military look and made it black for the drawing, when there is a lot of variety within Alethi uniforms. I did try to make him aloof and wiry (especially in the fullbody sketch) but could probably narrow his shoulders and make his stance less aggressive, since it's certainly important that he look at odds with the fact that he wears a side sword as it's brought up a lot in the text.

 

I hadn't thought about giving him a more weathered look and making his clothes worn before (for some reason I've always thought of Wit as super stylish? no clue why) but it is a very cool idea to push that he is a wanderer.

 

So again, thank you for the very thorough description, will definitely keep it in mind the next time I draw Wit!

 

I too am a Zahel fan (especially in the book that he's originally from ) and actually have done a few sketches, hopefully I have something to post of him soon... Botanica has already done 2 amazing Zahel drawings, have you seen 'em? :3

Edited April 8, 2014 by ExMachina