Art and comics. My art tag
My Pale Lights art tag
My A Practical Guide to Evil art tag
Practical Guide to Evil Spoiler Warning: Here you'll find Practical Guide to Evil fanart from Book 1 to Book 7 (online book versions). If you are a new reader following Yonder or the Webtoon comic, consider this your warning.
Here be spoilers!
Pale Lights spoiler policy: I will only post things that have been made public. Normally waiting for the latest chapter to also have posted on Royal Road.
Charactersheet for a comic I want to do. Title being "The Cat is Not a Cat".
Details may be changed up, but I think the basics are down, now. The comic probably will be in greayscales, so honestly I'll probably ignore all the colours eventually and make a great-scale version to work from.
Mari is a rogue-like character, althugh obviously one of the more heavily armored ones.
Lana is a warrior type character. Her light streak in the hair (which is very visible from the front) is a magic mishap. It's also gathered in some sort of bun at the back below her hat.
Mister Fluffybum most definitively is Lana's cat. Slander suggesting he may not be an actual feline will be ignored.
I had fun changing up the girls designs to two very different cultures, although some fantasy elements may be there. And I avoided too wild weapons, as the issue with comics are you have to draw that stuff over and over. And I don't want to have to consider how to properly transport around two-hand swords or the like in a fantasy world. Especially not if the answer is carrying them on your back, meaning you have to draw them all the time you draw that character's head.
I forget if there's some in-universe explanation for it (very possible, given the setting), but just suddenly had the thought that the Watch uniforms all being dyed black is just an utterly ruinously expensive flex on the rooks' part, isn't it?
I do remember the in-universe handwave being something about the Watch having a utter monopoly on some snail species that can be used to make a black dye (with this also being a source of funding for the Watch)
The Watch having monopoly - and being the only one using this exact black colour - not only is great PR and explaining the big use of black.
But if you think the Discord had not obsessed over this for years before the reveal, and spent way too long obsessing over the snail the moment it was introduced (ignoring the actual chapter plot for that week), you don't actually know the Discord patreon channels. XD
Anyway, the Watch having uniforms at all is a giant absurd flex in it's own. This really was not a standard of the Renaissance. At all. To the point where it's kinda moving into one of fantasy elements of Pale Lights.
Colouring them all black in a special super limited tone only they can use is just extra flexing on top.
You saw the subject line. It's Ferranda time. Let’s have fun with wild theories.
For the talk between Angharad and Ferranda, I think two things are notable.
Neither of them really want to make peace with the other person, and
Ferranda cares so little about Angharad, she isn’t even talking to her. Throughout most their talk, Ferranda is talking to Song. It doesn’t matter that Song isn’t there. Ferranda is perfectly capable of continuing the talk she and Song had, just using Angharad as a rubber duck stand-in to say “Song, I am better than you and here’s why.”
Now, from both Ferranda and Angharad’s perspective, they are right and the other person is wrong. But seriously, Ferranda’s arguments to Angharad specifically are horrible. If I really thought she was meaning to talk to Angharad (rather than actually addressing a Song not there), Ferranda should have her stripe privileges removed.
Song acknowledged to Ferranda she shot Isabel for the wrong reasons. Ferranda is not an idiot. She knew the wrong reason’s can be summed up as “Angharad”. Ferranda goes “Angharad is not the main character in my world, so I had the right reasons AND did the right thing”, without giving the background talk for this to Angharad.
Imagine someone walked up to the Thirteenth, shot Tristan’s brains out in front of them, and then went “you can’t be mad at me, because I knew Tristan back in Sacromonte and he deserves this. And seeing how this is not about you that I murdered someone you care about, you have no right to be upset about it. Stop acting like you are the main character just because I murdered someone you care about. Pft! Self-important much?”
THAT is Ferranda’s argument to Angharad.
Shockingly, it’s not very effective.
Angharad in contrast comes after having been up against Nathi. So she doesn’t dare using anything but the core fact she feels can’t be argued about: “Shooting an ally from behind during enemy combat is WRONG”, and no fancy wordplay will change that”. No talking about her feelings. No trying to actually argue against what Ferranda says. She just sticks to her one truth no matter what Ferranda says.
The irony in all of this is that while neither of them moved on the Isabel part, I think Angharad may very well have been an instrumental part in shattering a part of Ferranda’s upbringing at the end of this chapter.
Going off information from Tristan, Sacromonte is a capitalist hellhole that chews up everyone. Ferranda was part of the 1% at the top, but I think she too has learned her own “eat or be eaten” lessons. I think Ferranda has had most her kindness and altruism clinically removed during her upbringing much like Tristan.
Especially in book 1 – on the “no rules and everything goes” murder island, we actually see Ferranda choose to do the right thing repeatedly, even when it might cost her.
She confronts Isabel and tells her how much she hates her, even though this is a horrible idea for long term relationships should they both survive.
She ruins the second gate, so Tupoc’s group has to go with her group and Angharad’s group. Even though letting Tupoc die probably would have been to her advantage. But she didn’t want Lan, Aines and Felis to get hurt.
I think Ferranda wants to do good things. But I think she has been taught this is bad. So, she keeps doing selfish things instead. Or try to do good things but make them also selfish at the same time. Cao would be proud over this.Â
And here’s Angharad going “just help people, you dum dum”. And for once, Angharad isn’t meet with eye-rolls or people going “so naïve, but that’s why we like her”. Ferranda seems to listen.
Because Ferranda wants to hear this. She wants to be told that helping people just because you can, will also be the smart and cunning action she has been taught she always should take. She wants an excuse to do something good for the sake of doing good.
And I desperately want to see Ferranda succeed in this.
Pale Lights fanart joke that has been running on the Discord this week.
If you don't have homemade morals
Storebought is fine
Modernizing Song and Angharad was fun. Bangs are basically my go-to for an instant much more contemporaty Song look. It's pretty wild just how few cultures had women with bangs historically.
Angharad has been collecting scars over the past three books. But they're normally all covered up.
Back when I first wrote about Yaotl's culture shock, I brought up how even Nathi looked less absurd in holding onto his cultural assumptions than she did. Yes, this is partly because Yaotl was closer to the center of power in Izcali than Nathi is in Malan, and this proximity to power can isolate people from other perspectives. Yaotl was so enmeshed in the Izcali halls of power that she thought the Izcali hammer could hit every nail she came across, and Nathi is able to be a bit more flexible than her because he didn't spend his entire life at the Queen Perpetual's court.
But then, the Malani hammer isn't as out of place on Tolomonterra as the Izcali one is, because the noble kids brought the cultural institution with them. Malan's nobility has a bit more 'noble' in it than that of the other great powers; it's a strong, established institution that takes itself and its place within society, both its duties and its priviliges, a lot more seriously than many of the others do. It's a respected institution even outside of Malan (compared to the Sacromonte equivalent, which nobody respects), and so they get to bring little pieces of that institution, of home with them.
So they have their fancy little dinner parties behind closed doors where they get to reinforce their hierarchy and establish a bit of a pecking order within the Watch (one of many, since the Akelarre do the same shit), and it's here where Nathi flourishes. Because he is close to the center of Malani power, what with him being prepared for the Queen Perpetual's court. In this little pocket realm, being good at Malani politics gets to matter, and gets to make him the cream of the crop.
Except, of course, they aren't in Malan, and they aren't part of the Malani nobility in actuality. They are part of the Watch, and the Watch doesn't actually give a shit about the games they play. The Watch plays by different rules, and this little pocket realm they've established in little more than a bubble.
And, much like Yaotl got her cultural shit rocked, this Malani bubble just burst, and the reality of the Watch entered their slice of home.
So now we get to see what that culture shock looks like.
I do find it very interesting, how the people from the fancy Malani noble parties just learned nobody else truly cares about Malani nobility customs.
They see Angharad Tredegar - that just delievered the killing blow to the fucking dantesvara, and still is hobling a bit from the wounds she took doing that - absolutely pummel an arrogant noble stripe in defence of her brigade. And you know what... They kinda prefer Angharad in all of this. Or at least they are more worried about crossing Thirteenth than they are crossing Forty-ninth.
Nathi ended up hanging on the door of a very well-visited establishement for 90 minutes is wild. Not even the staff bothered removing him. Probably thought this was good for business as other patrons walked past him to get their cheap beer.
And certainly, none of the other people from the noble party helped, even if you know they all had followed after Nathi and Angharad and were watching. And if nobody from that group was willing to help Nathi, who would be?
Thsi actually should have been a warning to the noble party. If they don't even want to be seen helping Nathi, who are they actually expecting to truly side against Angharad? Just because they say what she did was wrong, they certainly didn't show the actions to back this up.
And everyone else cares more about what you have done in the watch than what family you were born into.
POV: Everything was going so well, and then suddenly, you are the victim of a skiritai that just refuse to fall in line. Can’t be bought. Can’t be reasoned with. Doesn’t care about the social fallout. WTF?
Zhaomeng did a wonderful fanart of this chapter with Angharad in a black dress. And it made so much sense for her to wear the Watch colour for this, I took it a step further and made her outfit the sort of noble lady riding dress that combines a big feminine court dress with a masculine justacorps. Granted, the fashion starts around 1700, so it’s juuuuust a bit too modern for a world where the fashion is meant to end there. But it just felt so perfect.
I played around with the hat because Angharad isn’t into big feathers on those. And accidentally ended up making a visual metaphor about a lifted veil, that I figured I had to keep.
I filled out a couple of Brigades. 3rd and 9th are starting to seem more and more important.
Jeronimo: We got surprisingly little about what Jeronimo looks like. So, I pretty much just guessed. So many of my Lierganen portraits get mid-brown hair, just to add a bit of variation to all the super dark hair.
Andreu: This is my “EE better not kill this cutie” art. This fandom is keeping the chatty gay pirate, telling you all this now! He even canonically has a hat. Which amusingly is most of what we know about his looks besides curly hair.
Ruo Xuan: We actually got a bit of confirmation on the hairstyle from EE on the discord. I guess it makes sense that Song would either want to kill or marry this guy. I think he needs to add a design-element that’s slightly off. So she in theory easily could correct it.
Jingyi: Izel’s honey-voiced friend. We… Know he has glasses. But let’s be real, he’s almost part of Izel’s exponentially expanding harem. He gotta be cute.
Yaotl: Updated her art by removing the facepaint. Because something tells me she might not be wearing that for much longer.
Ishanvi: Updated the hairnet to something she can wear into battle. I liked the Indian-inspired shawl, but I’m guess we’re doing European Renaissance now instead.
For 31st brigade, Book 1 is Still Lurking in the Background
Oh hey, we finally got Ferranda’s POV. As expected, it explains a lot. But also reveals a bunch of faults and biases.
Ferranda really needs to sit down and talk to her brigade. They need to get on the same page. As is, part of her issue is that she wants to do top-down management. But also at the same time keeps doing what her friends say they want to really do, even if it goes against the vision only she knows.
More interestingly, I think it’s fascinating how book 1 is lurking in the background of the Grief Trio.
Shalini keeps voting against any situation, where her contract might attract a bunch of lemures that could put her group in danger. Considering this was part of what got Ayanda abducted in Book 1, this is pretty understandable. And probably a big reason for why Zenzele can even be friends with her long term.
Ferranda is terrified of the idea of making the wrong decision that will get someone she cares about killed. She even in this chapter references “running in the wrong direction”. The thing she did, when she and Sanale decided to run away from the rest of the misfits in book 1, hoping the big monster would take so long eating the others in that group, she and Sanale could escape. This in the end got Sanale killed. And he was the reason she was even there in the first place.
Ferranda being super focused on keeping the two people she subsequently trauma-bonded with alive makes sense. Her actions on how to do that are more questionable.
Zenzele on his part is highly focused on making long term allies that will show up even when everything else has gone wrong. It may seem a little more subtle at first, because this not only fit him being a diplomat, but the other reason behind technically goes back before book 1 started.
Zenzele got cast out of his own family, and had an assassination contract placed on him from the family he was supposed to marry into. And his aunt decided to stand behind him, reasoning the only chance for Zenzele and Ayanda to make it was the watch. And then he lost both his aunt and his girlfriend in book 1. In part due to backstabbing. And said assassins. To make matters eve worse, once they get to Scholomance, Musa goes for him the day before school start trying to eradicate Zenzele’s reputation. Only, Zenzele got saved by an unexpected ally stepping in between him and Musa. And he later repaid Angharad by supporting not taking her into his cabal (that decision probably by now is haunting him).
It’s not that strange Zenzele's threshold has been reached. Zenzele no longer will support actions that will take away the only allies he feels actually are worth having. Because for Zenzele it’s not important to have a lot of fair-weather allies. What for him is important is to have those few depraved but talented lunatic allies, that are strong enough to scare away powerful people trying to murder him and those he cares about. And willing to show up to do that.
Somewhere in that process, Zenzele's top one priority "to keep him and his loved ones safe", has ended up working directly against Ferranda's preferred strategy, that she wants to use "to keep her and her loved ones safe".
Pale Lights Book 3 chapter 43 silly sketchbook fanart.
“He was never very good at using anyone else’s,” Nenetl said. “When we were children, he was unbeaten at hopscotch – until I did beat him, so he altered the rules we played by. Age has not much changed him, save for a little polish.”
Song diplomatically decided not to touch that with a ten-foot pole. As if sensing her discomfort, Nenetl offered up a smile and knocked back half her cup of wine before setting it down.
“But you’re not here for old tales,” Nenetl said as Song mirrored her with a small sip. “You are here for better terms than what he’ll squeeze out of you.”
Song getting a better use out of that ten-foot pole.
Pale Lights Book 3 Chapter 43 – Tolomontera Residents
At some point it had to happen. The non-student sheet (I ran out of rows I could add in Clip Studio Paint on the other file, and wanted to move the Orels. Turns out: You can only have 50000 pixels high files in CSP).
To celebrate, I added a couple of portraits. I planned to do more and edit some things, but then Real Life hit me.
Actual new art not reused from earlier art overviews collected at the top.
Nilan Achari: An argument was made for turning the headwear pickles coloured, but then I didn’t open the file Again, because real life hit me. It was kinda nice doing a portrait of someone old.
Ishanvi’s Friend: Art reuse. I’m not even ashamed. Also, have you all considered just how tiny a thumb-sized little creature is? Just, measure your own thumb, and then consider how much space that would take up on a picture including full sized humans.
Lady Knit: This one was fun. String textures. Amusingly, you can’t really see how elongated I made her, because she’s so far removed from average portraits.
A4 watercolour, white ecoline and coloured pencils
My new fancy cotton paper gave me a scare when I started out. The wet on wet start looked so grainy, I was basically going "oh well, there's always the next painting" before letting it dry up some more. Then it all smoothed out when drying.
Also, I nearly dipped my brush in the tea yesterday. You joke about not doing that. You place the water and the tea far apart. And yet…
I added a couple of antagonists. I planned to add some other characters as well, but life got n the way.
However: There’s now a background colour code for Hunters and Library Delvers.
Bad news for Tumblr users. I was too lazy to split this up into 9-10 seperate images for better Tumblr viewing. I hope you manage.
New characters:
Diego: I can never quite figure what the Akelarre special uniform is supposed to be. I think EE has retconned it from robes to a special tunic between book 2 and 3, but I have no idea how to not make it robes to give it a proper Renaissance Scholar look. XD
Anyway, it’s been suggested I should also add a fancy scarf to our mercenary fashion lover. But I never got around to make that add on. Might happen at some time.
Cai Wei: I actually really like her overall look. Figures I waste it on a character that probably only is around this book. There’s a version of her without the ghost tones. Which I was blatantly inspired from by Zhaomeng’s cool scene art.
Ferranda Has Ditched or Backstabbed Most Her Allies for Three Books, Actually
For Pale Lights book 3, chapter 40.
It's pretty wild if you start to tally up Ferranda's "backstab my allies" record. Hindsight is 20/20.
As with most smaller EE characters, Ferranda is the protagonist in her own story. But few can be reframed just as heavily as her, when looking back to previous books after what has happened in book 3.
She’s seemingly loyal to a very small closed circle. Everyone else: Fair game.
Book 1
Left the infanzone group at the first chance available, in spite of previous deals clearly having been made (Angering the Cerdans). We as readers instantly forgave her that one as it happened, though. As the infanzones were pretty bad.
(Also, Angharad instantly took her side)
Ditched the misfits as they were chased by the airavatan, betting they would be eaten by the airavatan, which would delay it enough for her and Sanale to get away. She then changed her mind when she realised Tristan's plan was working and she now would be the first that would be chased (this cost her Sanale).
Tristan not blaming her for an instant, and Ferranda’s clear grief over losing her partner, if anything made most readers like her more after that one.
Backstabbed Ishaan's plan to break just one door - breaking the second door and only leaving one. Seemingly for genuine moral reasons, not wanting Lan, Aines and Felis to get hurt.
This is the one time, that Ferranda actually have seemed to do something purely for others, while risking to get in trouble herself doing it. It is technically her backstabbing her own leader, but in this instance, it also was the morally right thing to do.
Shot Isabel while travelling to the third trial. Literally murdering one of her own allies.
We as readers got a positive impression of Ferranda from book 1. We did not know about Isabel (and a lot of readers support that one regardless), and her other actions all seemed understandable.
Her forming up in a grief trio with Zenzele and Shalini was sympathetic. But also, to Ferranda’s advantage (she so far truly does seem to care about those two).
But basically, the one group Ferranda was part of in book 1 that she did not ditch or backstab in some way was the improvised "fleeing from the devils" group at the end of the book. It’s pretty extreme once you notice it.
What does stand out as selfless was her breaking the gate. That genuinely seems like her just not wanting Lan, Felis and Aines getting hurt. And that together with her having a star-crossed lovers arc with a commoner, meant people left book one thinking Ferranda was the one good infanzona.
Book 2
Happily took in Angharad the mirror-dancer prodigy when she left Thirteenth. Then denied Angie entrance into Thirty-First after Angharad got crippled. Using the "you put your own allies in danger" argument.
Looking back, this is like... The pot calling the kettle black. On top of that, she’s also been doing the same with Tristan, Angharad and Izel for most of book 3 so far.
Loves them when they have no negatives. Wants to be rid of them the moment they are trouble.
Which brings us to:
Book 3
Very much wanted a giant very public alliance with 13th when they were super popular. Then backtracked immediately, wanting nothing public linking them at all, once Tristan went full snail poison.
This was where Izel started to see her as a Fairweather Friend, and she hasn’t done much to prove him wrong so far.
Refused to tell her own brigade what was going on repeatedly. Using the "you would agree with you knew" argument, while knowing full well that was wrong. She basically didn’t trust them to have her back, and just went full “I’m the leader and my word is law”.
This more than anything probably was what truly frustrated Zenzele and Shalini. Ferranda didn’t trust them, while taking controversial decisions without explaining why.
Tried to ditch 13th the moment they all got in real difficulties with Diego. - But only after Tristan the Thirteenth negotiator had left.
This backfired badly, as Angharad saw no reason to be diplomatic. And Ferranda has corroded her own cabal support.
Again, I think Ferranda is the protagonist in her own story. And we’re still missing vital information.
Her being about to lose most her face after the Misery Square attack probably will become important. What was her price? Or did she get healed by a certain first-year student?
Not to mention, that the pure irony of the thing that happened to Isabel also happened to Ferranda, can’t be lost on Ferranda. And then she has to work with Angharad again.
But it is interesting to go back to book 1 and 2. And starting to look at Ferranda’s actions again. After book 3 so far. Because like said: So many of her previous actions now can be read in a different light.
Ferranda has been digging a ditch for herself, much like Maryam also have this book. Now it’s time for her to start climbing out.
Aeliakyu is doing a dress up event on Cara, and I could not resist. I picked her character Eve.
This started up as a sketch of a very 18th century mantua inspired outfit, going for the big black overdress elements you see in some of Eve's outfits as well as the pastel pink tones and elements of her super feminine style.
I ended up changing the design sketch from floor lenght to mid lower leg lenght. And then it raised to above the knees on the final version, because that seemed more like the character. So this went from 18th century themed to dark magical girl (with demon blood powers) themed.
It's a lot more elaborate than Eve's usual style, but i think she'd wear it. Besides, what's the fun in not pushing things a little? ;)
The event: https://cara.app/post/4f76fba5-ba8a-4c56-9599-9c052c356254
Pose reference from TrueRef photo: https://community.trueref.io/
