Cherryray

🩷💛💙 Artist. Writer. Roleplayer Mostly Hogwarts Legacy modern AU

[cherryray-hl]

Student record Vincent's been in my head since late 2023. I've built his lore, his game canon, his modern AU… And I've been writing fanfics and doing text RP for almost two years. So why am I only now posting his profile? No idea. But here we are. @kiwiplaetzchen thank you for the amazing character sheet template. And then, a lot of text... ▼

Vincent was born in London, into an ordinary family. He had a warm relationship with his mother, but a difficult one with his father, who soon left the family. He was admitted to Hogwarts late, and the reason was Ancient Magic: it had suppressed his magical abilities until a certain age. Vincent suffers from mood swings, headaches, and hallucinations caused by the Ancient Magic running through his blood. On top of that, he sleeps poorly during difficult times, and his dreams feel almost prophetic — which is exactly why he hates Divination class. He doesn't believe the future is set in stone. Sometimes, when the symptoms of his "illness" subside, he is cheerful and full of energy, ready to move mountains. But at other times, especially during severe episodes, he languishes in the Room of Requirement, trying to "weather the storm inside his body."

From the outside, Vincent seems unsociable, even cold. But in reality, he isn't rude without reason and has excellent manners. He always looks immaculate — well-groomed and neat. Due to unpleasant circumstances in his childhood, he suffers from a mild form of mysophobia. And he never eats cold food that he hasn't prepared himself. About the relationships... ▼

Natty taught him how to use wandless magic. He never mastered it as well as he would have liked, but he still learned something.

He often spends time in the Vivarium with Poppy.

He also volunteers for Garreth's experiments — every single time, without hesitation. Garreth absolutely loves this. In a way, Vincent has become his test subject, but he doesn't mind at all. It's all for the greater good (probably).

Vincent loves arguing with Imelda — and winning.

He feels some kind of connection to Amit, though he's not sure why.

Vincent is gay. He had been in love with Sebastian since fifth year, but only managed to confess his feelings in seventh year. If we're talking about "hot"... ▼

Vincent has a hand kink. And Sebastian makes excellent use of it.

He also likes asphyxiation, but tries not to overdo it. Or rather, Sebastian tries to control the pressure of his grip. About the AU... In the modernAU, he is engaged to Adrian Dubois. Outside of canon and in modernAU, Vincent is in relationship with Castiel Vagrandeer. Both characters belong to @vagrandeer Art in good resolution and a few screenshots. ▼

[cherryray-hl]

Sweet Vincent Stages below, if you're interested ▼

I'm using Photoshop and start with a ref — or an idea, but that takes longer. I need at least a rough image. My brain isn't great at ideas — I usually find something online.

My sketch is messy — just to map out where things go. If I'm not using lineart, I skip it and paint over the sketch. It looks messier during the process, but it saves time on lineart I don't really need. If I do need lineart, I clean it up until it's decent enough. For this piece, it's more of a 'good enough' approach — just to show how I draw lines. I usually color the lineart dark brown and add the same glow — Layer Style > Color Overlay and Outer Glow.

When it's time to add color, I apply it to the character using roughly the same pattern every time: lighter tones on the cheekbones, around the eyes and under the brows, and on the tip of the nose — with darker shades in the eye sockets and along the cheeks. Then I take a textured smudge brush and blend the colors until I'm satisfied.

For the hair, I use a dedicated hair brush that I've had since 2022 — I've never changed it. The only difference is that I used to skip blending, but now I do, which is why the hair looks softer.

Everything else follows the same logic. I also look at references — some of them have stylized anatomy that works better for cartoons or anime. That was actually the case here — the fingers looked a bit twisted. I only noticed it while coloring, so I used my own hand as a reference instead. (I highly recommend using live references!)

Then I add light using a soft brush through a clipping mask — blending if needed, though I didn't need to for this particular piece.

As for the rest… it's pure random, honestly. Just experimenting. On this piece, there's a bright blue layer on top of everything, set to Color (at 50% opacity), and I used a textured eraser to reveal the face. Then, for a subtle glow effect, I merge the layers, duplicate them, apply Gaussian blur, set the blending mode to Soft Light, and adjust the opacity until it looks pleasant.

And… that's about it, I think. Why isn't there a timelapse? I honestly don't know how to capture my screen without Nvidia — and even if I figured it out, there's no way my 17 GB SSD would survive a 10-hour recording.

[cherryray-hl]

Happy birthday, my dear <3

Today is a day when I can pull your ears for a different reason (There's a Slavic tradition of pulling the birthday person's ears as many times as their age)

Adrian belongs to @vagrandeer

[87percentcreativity]

This comic is dedicated to @vagrandeer ‘s Adrien, ft @cherryray-hl ‘s Vincent

A/N: “Gift” in French is “cadeau”

[cherryray-hl]

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳 Hope you had a wonderful day and please keep sharing your wonderful drawings with the world!!! (especially the handsome men.......... 👀 for my sake......... 👀) 💚

Thank you so much for the kind words! 💕 Sharing drawings of handsome men — that's something I can definitely do 😌🙏

[cherryray-hl]

Happy Birthday 🎂🫶🏼🥳

I hope you had an amazing day today 💕 May all your wishes come true.

I wish I had a gift for you, but my talent for art is limited at best. I did however find two cute picrews and thought I'd put Vincent (and Sebastian) in them 🤭

And because I would love to learn more about him, I have two questions for Vincent, too.

1) What is a small thing that makes him smile? 2) Does he have habits that he would stop if he could?

Sending you all the best wishes

Laura 💕

Laura, thank you so much! That's really sweet of you 🫶 The pictures are lovely, and as for Vincent's little joy and the habit he wishes he could get rid of…

He's always glad when Garreth offers him to be a test subject for new potions or drinks. He doesn't even fear the consequences. As for the non-canon Vincent — he's happy whenever his and Adrian's shared sphynx cat — who's not exactly known for her easygoing nature — acts friendly and peacefully falls asleep in his arms. He immediately feels like a good cat dad.

2. He'd gladly get rid of the habit of looking at other guys 😁 He's a neat freak who loves everything in its place. But sometimes this habit takes up a lot of time, which irritates him a little.

[vagrandeer]

Happy birthday, @cherryray-hl !🎂

And so, another year has passed. In two days, it'll be two years since we started chatting daily about Hogwarts Legacy, creativity, and life in general. A lot of time has gone by — so many artworks have been drawn and so many texts written together! And our 10k-page roleplay is just something else...

Anyway, happy birthday, dear! I wish you never lose your passion for the fandom, to have an endless supply of imagination and inspiration! And, of course, happiness, health, money — the classic👀

I love you, little wild berry🍒

Of course, no one knows this guy in the art. This is Lucas Noir — the guy Cherry fell for the moment he first appeared in my text in the roleplay. More precisely, Vincent instantly crushed on him when he came to Paris for the weekend. It led to huge problems, but now they've been resolved.

(I don't like Lucas because Vincent loses his mind over him, but I do love Lucas because he has a sad story of the only love in his life. Fortunately, not with Vincent.)

[cherryray-hl]

Two days ago, when I saw this art as a postcard — when I took it out of the envelope — I was silent for about ten seconds in the voice message, unable to get a single word out. I was so shocked that you'd drawn Lucas. I'm sure there were hearts in my eyes at that moment, because my heart was pounding like crazy — even my scalp started tingling. I'm endlessly grateful to you for two unforgettable years of friendship, for your care (especially about my crappy health), and for your support. I love you endlessly 💘

[87percentcreativity]

This comic is dedicated to @cherryray-hl

Happy birthday Cherry :DDDD

Meow Meow Meow indeed.

[cherryray-hl]

I'm in tears. Thank you so much 🥹

[vagrandeer]

Date at the aquarium 🐠🐙

Vincent (@cherryray-hl) had already been to the London Aquarium with Adrian, and later decided to go there with Castiel 🥰

These two really love fish — they both have their own aquariums (Castiel's aquarium is so huge that he has to stand on a stool to feed the axolotls living there, lol). Vincent has a regular desktop aquarium with tropical fish. Adrian promises to buy whatever aquarium Vincent wants, as soon as they move from London to Paris 💕

(Yes, I have no idea what the light looks like from inside the water, rather than from the viewer's side. Forgive me, I'm not a real artist, lmao)

[cherryray-hl]

I'm sure these two would totally live in an aquarium if they could 🐟

[cherryray-hl]

A birthday greeting for a smiley boy who belongs to @lyra-prag. Thank you for your support and kind comments <3

[cherryray-hl]

My beloved troublemaker I also felt like dressing him up in something fancy — to try drawing more draping and small details. And as it happens, I was watching 'Interview with the Vampire' at the same time, so that ended up influencing Castiel's outfit. Castiel belongs to @vagrandeer The version without glasses ▼

[sadlynotanashryver]

Artstyle Study Conclusion

So after roughly two months, I am concluding my art style studies with one last drawing. My last victim was @lyra-prag’s Lyra. Thank you for always sharing my art and commenting, it genuinely meant a lot to me!

Here’s also all your blorbos in the original sheet: @amus2110, @endless-starlight-legacy, @colettening, @mintyme101, @amethystandemma, @mrsluffy07, @cheonchi, @soapallo, @ravenothere, @syrooo, @cherryray-hl, @pheexblack

Special thanks also to @sunkissedtrampolin3, who had to listen to me complain about the different artists and how they all made me want to cry, and who always provided me with in-game references whenever I couldn’t properly see an outfit.

And also @elkingwriter, thank you for always reading my long-ass ramblings and continuously sticking with me throughout this journey.

Let’s dissect everything under the cut and see what actually stuck.

So, what did I actually learn and consciously think about while drawing Lyra?

During the sketch and lineart phase, I definitely see bits of my latest study and Kalisamii’s influence, especially in the flowing hair. Even though I absolutely refused to draw every individual strand, I still tried to make the hair flow naturally and give the overall silhouette more movement.

For the hair rendering, I went back to drawing in some individual strands and giving the hair shape with a pattern brush (Adele Dunand), but I also added deeper shadow masses underneath and erased parts of the rendering to create individual strands, similar to what Frostbite does.

I never merged my lineart during the rendering process. Instead, I kept the body and hair on separate layers so I could paint the hair over the body’s lineart, if you know what I mean. I don’t really know why, but it just feels right. I hate seeing an eye line continue underneath someone’s hair.

I did, however, color my lineart in the end and added some spot blacks like I learned from Frostbite.

Generally speaking, during the basic rendering process I was probably influenced by Frostbite the most. I constantly caught myself thinking:

„Make the face as detailed and beautiful as possible, then keep the clothing and hair much simpler. Just make sure everything works together.“

Once that was done, I added the lighting and glow using Overlay and Add layers, just like Lotusbubble taught me.

I didn’t use many different colors while rendering, nor did I really pull colors from the background. My reference background was black, so I simply stuck with that. I’m still not entirely comfortable with color, so that’s probably why. During my studies I often color-picked directly from the artists to understand where they liked to sit on the color wheel, but this time I didn’t. Without anything to lean on, I actually think I did a pretty decent job with the rendering.

With Kalisamii in the back of my mind once again, I tried adding a tiny bit more visual noise and decorative details at the very end. I’m still lazy though. Lol.

Short conclusion:

I learned so fucking much during these two months.

I studied each artist for at least a week, produced countless “failed” artworks that only some of you ever saw in DMs, and then, two weeks later, messaged you again saying, “Never mind, scratch that. I’m starting over.”

Over the last month, I probably drew around 3–4 hours every single day, and to be honest… I feel a little burned out.

That’s why I won’t be pumping out quite as many drawings from now on. I want to focus on the things I actually want to draw instead of constantly making little doodles, because as much as I love yapping with all of you about your OCs, I’ve realized it gives me this weird feeling that I always have to give something back. Every piece of art I receive immediately turns into another drawing on my mental to-do list, and eventually that only makes me want to stop drawing altogether.

So shoutout to @sunkissedtrampolin3 once again for reminding me that it’s perfectly okay to simply appreciate art without feeling like I have to answer with another drawing and that we can still yap about OCs the old-fashioned way: completely unhinged headcanons.

So while I’m definitely not disappearing, I also want to get back to writing my fanfics. Writing was what originally brought me into this fandom, and I still love it just as much. It just steals a lot of time away from drawing, and I haven’t quite figured out how to balance the two yet. But I will.

If you’re interested in my process, I also included the timelapse of this drawing. It‘s only the 30 seconds because this takes an absurd amount of storage.

And, most importantly…

…my beloved Liquify tool.

What would I even be without you?

[cherryray-hl]

After Mayui's piece, I wanted to draw Vincent in something fancy too.

And I filled out another character sheet just out of interest. Now it'll be clear why the Sorting Hat sent him to Slytherin. Vincent is pretty ambiguous in his actions and worldview — but he's definitely not a bad guy. He wants everything from life and to be remembered after he's gone. ▼

@syrooo, thank you so much for the student template

[cherryray-hl]

[cherryray-hl]

Not many people know this, but my first drawing on Tumblr was dedicated to a time when I had a crush on a girl. A pretty serious one at that. And it's so good that I can say that openly now, without fear of judgment.

Happy Pride Month, everyone! 🌈

[artbyketto]

"... and most of all, I miss book shopping with you in Hogsmeade, your carefree smile permanently etched in my mind as I carried all your bags. I know you'll never forgive me for what happened with Uncle Solomon, but I hope that wherever you are, you're living your best life."

Love, Sebastian.

━━━━━━━━━━━༻ ༺━━━━━━━━━━━

comms open

[blue-birdie612]

What's your MC's Stats?

I had this idea for a lil itty bitty chart and figured what the hell 🤪 What's your MC's strengths, weaknesses? What's their special move in combat? It could be anything, from an Ancient Magic move to a specific spell, or even some psycological trick that works on Ashwinders every time.

No pressure tags and other blank chart options under the cut! Even if you weren't tagged, don't hesitate to jump in! JUST TAG ME I WANNA SEE UR BLORBIES 👹👹👹

Tags: @myokk @barnabyjr @lynnsartsworld @lyra-prag @amus2110 @kay9leo @kijoo @pierrot-dokki @anyahoney @thornsunicorn @sage-pages @elkingwriter @moonstonesandemma @mooncalfwaltz @ravenothere @light-of-the-room @4t33n4g3d1rtb4gbby @pearlevie @weebiecreep @winkywynz5 @creampuffcloudsdreaming @soapallo @girl-named-matty

[lyra-prag]

Thanks to @blue-birdie612 @creampuffcloudsdreaming and @winkywynz5 for the tags 😊

NP tagging:

@87percentcreativity @ravenothere @amethystandemma @syrooo @elisalsaa @idrewastar @karajluce @sallowsoul @mostboringcrossover @light-of-the-room @pikadrawsthings @shanethehufflepuff @le-rryder

(Sorry if you've been tagged already)

[87percentcreativity]

Ty @lyra-prag @amus2110 @winkywynz5 and @creampuffcloudsdreaming for tagging me :DDDDD

Wyanne has hardly been on the battlefield, nor does she play quidditch, but she still weight trains so she has pretty good stamina—this is me saying I’m not making the female character weaker by any means. (Maybe I think too much)

Anyway tagging @mostboringcrossover @cherryray-hl @weebiecreep and YOU🫵

[cherryray-hl]

Thanks to @87percentcreativity for the tags Basically, Vincent as a D&D rogue — but a wizard I'm really love to see your character charts — but no pressure! @vagrandeer @ravenothere @mayui-ao @konstantin-mc-hl

[cherryray-hl]

A Gryffindor pureblood prince 🍂