Hidden Roads

A 2D digital artist, no AI. Screen names: Ardariel, HelFLart. Commissions open: place an order through Ko-fi. Will gladly draw and paint your characters. Pricelist and more varied listings on ko-fi coming soon. Heavily fantasy&mythology driven. Love Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft, LoTR, Discworld, DnD books, Celtic, Egyptian, Slavic mythologies. Linktr.ee: all places you can find me at.

[ardariel]

Personal work. This guy's name's Ellarten Stoneheart. Arrogant, strong-willed, powerful. All in the worst sense. The antagonist in a story I'm writing (it's weird to even say this, but I actually am writing it).

[ardariel]

Finished painting a character design, a demon shaman lady. A personal work.

[ardariel]

An elven sorceress in cool green and blue tones with gold adornments. I wanted to create a soft and slightly ethereal vibe here.

[ardariel]

An OC. A typical undead with typical white hair and typical yellow eyes. What can I say, I'm just a typical girl after all.

[ardariel]

Fenris for #sixfanarts that I'm doing.

[ardariel]

Hi. I'm Helen (or Ardariel) and I draw, paint and design fantasy characters!

[ardariel]

Painted Jareth for the six fanarts game. I asked my followers to give me some ideas, which characters would look good in my style, and someone came up with Jareth in the very first comment! I was incredibly glad, never would've thought to paint him myself, but when I was asked to, the idea actually seemed so obvious. Anywaaaay, Jareth the Goblin King and his fancy costume. I so enjoyed looking at the references, the visuals of the movie are still to this day a treat to look at. (And Sarah is such a clever girl for not letting him get too close.)

[ardariel]

A page of random head sketches, no one in particular, just imagination spilled on the page.

[ardariel]

A portrait study from a photo on pinterest.

The comment section mentioned the photo was of an actress, but I forgot the name. I like how this turned out, although I'm still struggling to make my studies more stylized. I admire people who are able to manipulate the reference to a great degree and still get the resemblance in their work.

[ardariel]

A path in a murky forest, a raven and a witch's hut. Especially proud of the witch house here. This is my take on some of the inktober themes from 2025. The big idea was to make small sets of drawings dedicated to some of my favourite types of fantasy — fairy tales and folklore in this case.

Made with traditional medium: pen and ink on Bristol paper, scanned and retouched a little in CSP.

[ardariel]

Two of my favourite inktober drawings from 2025. 

Ink on bristol paper, scanned and touched up a little in CSP. Representing two major dnd or more generally, rpg classes, a mage and a warrior. 

[ardariel]

Painted for a DTIYS held currently by Golightlyfinch on instagram. Lovely design and color combination, had to try my hand at it. 😊

[ardariel]

More headcanons in the form of illustration.

First of all, it's hot in Kogoruhn, at least on its deepest levels. You can't comfortably wear anything but your lightest robes and sandals.

Also, remember the gardens of Kogoruhn I told you about previously? They grow some kind of fruit there, and from it, House Dagoth makes one of the finest spirits on Vvardenfell. If you were to have an audience with his lordship, you'd most certainly be treated to some of his best brandy.

Careful though, your diplomacy skill would have to be very high to have this conversation.

Upd: Updated with a color correction version.

[ardariel]

Felt like sketching a dunmer face. It's a random dude, no one in particular. Love these particular dark elves to pieces.

[ardariel]

Hal, my OC, 2026 design version. Ye gods, I missed digital painting a lot.

[fleursdesmorts]

cunty outfit to wear when becoming a fugitive while carrying your sister naked in a cryo box. who's doing it like him

[ardariel]

I think I should add at least some of the Firefly guys to my fanart list. <3

[ardariel]

I made a list of characters to do fanarts of this year. First comes this gentleman, Strahd von Zarovich. Strange how I read "I, Strahd" by P. Elrod when I was around 12-13, but never really tried to draw him, not even a sketch! Fixed that now.