Non Omnis Moriar

Artblog for my BG3 Tav Fein, who took over my art life.

[marrasvalkea]

No idea what is discussed here, but I think everyone should know that Astarion is both smarter and wiser of these two.

[marrasvalkea]

The paintings gallery

Explanation and commentary below the cut.

While exploring the mansion Astarion finds an unfortunate reminder from the past as a portrait of one of Cazador's 'esteemed guests' is hanging on a gallery wall. After once again facing memories he'd rather forget it's time to move on as what other choice is there? Hopefully something better can be found behind the next door.

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If I've understood correctly most of the nobility and the other influential people of the Baldur's Gate all knew what Cazador was doing (or atleast they had some idea) but relatively small number were directly involved in his 'parties.' Or appear on Cazador files as I like to think about them.

The mansion Astarion is exploring here belongs to family whose founder and his daughter were close friend of Fein's several decades ago. Fein gained the permission for the gang to stay at the masion, which was easy, since the coronation massacre and the talk about the Absolute spooked the family who were already heading out of the city.

I wanted to explore what kind of positions the 'esteemed guests' would have been within their own families, which I intent to continue in future comics or illustrations. Here a portrait of one of those people is hanging in the prime spot in the paintings gallery. The man in the painting is grandson of the man who made this family rise to importance by finding and trading extremely rare and esoteric magical relics. So he's perceived as important and well respected person and not as a creeping pervert.

Fein has no idea that some members of the family are on the files, as this kind of conduct would have been a death sentence if the family's oldest generation was still alive. Sadly the ethics were not a part of the inheritance. Fein does not deal with them often enough to pick up on this, but once he finds out there will be a downfall. I like to think Astarion would tell him about his findings.

There is no text or inner dialogue because I find it unreasonably difficult to write. I hope the images convey the story well enough. This is the first comic I've made in 18 years, so is definetly not perfect.

[marrasvalkea]

The black cat is called Mörkö (translates into bogey or creature) and the silver one is called Paju (willow). Paju is a distinguished lady and Mörkö is very much not.

The cats live in the estate Fein and Astarion stay at when they are not travelling. The staff named the cats.

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Excuse me?

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Trying different kind of styles in these quick drawings as I'd like to learn how to make digital stuff faster.

Also these made it very clear to me that I'm an artist and not a designer as coming up with designs for clothes is a constant battle.

[marrasvalkea]

Last year I made myself draw hands daily for 3 months straight so now I can fairly accurately depict Astarion explaining with his hands.

For a while now I've had an idea for an illustration where these two sit on a wall during sunset. Just chilling, doing nothing in particular. Astarion is explaining something while Fein is listening. I've not yet made a proper plan or construction for this painting, but here are two sketches.

Purple mechanical pencil lead, fineliners or dip pen (can't remember which), Diamine Sparkling Shadows ink for inkwash, but the golden glitter does not show up in a scan that much. In real life these sketches are iridescent. Paper is some Faber-Castell multimedia thing that came out of my art supplies stash.

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This is a study of midwinter indoors lighting.

I'm aware it's almost summer. This has been sitting in my drafts since mid February.

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Fiddling with actual paints and pens after spending most of last year doing digital stuff is more fun than I remembered. My neck does not like it though.

Painting portraits by hand is easier if you just ignore fine tuning the features. Trying to make the metallic paint show up in a photo is a bit tricky. I love metallic paints so I'll keep trying.

A4 watercolour paper, watercolour, black (Talens Indian ink) and gold (W&N drawing) ink and watercolour pen for sketching.

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Watercolour and ink painting from march 2026. I'm not that happy with this one but maybe someone here will like it. I'm a bit of a hater of the paper I painted this on (I chose that paper, so this is entirely my fault).

Metallic paint is Coliro watercolour. Silver shade is called Moonlight and gold is called Moon gold, both of which I might have chosen because the names match.

Also Fein's experssion was happier in the original sketch but my dip pen skills were too rusty to replicate that so have this slightly sullen look instead.

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I'm trying out my new brushes and this glorified sketch just happens to be the first thing made with them.

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Halsin can be drawn as a cave bear right?

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Why sulk when you can be happy for others?

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This is Fein's friends' guest room of their mansion in the Upper City. The gang gets to use tha mansion while the owners are away. Fein told them about the impending dangers the city will likely face in the near future and they decided to go for a holiday.

Fein got the outfit is from the Pirate Isles during one of his adventures.

[marrasvalkea]

I'm currently experimenting with my art, because my old way of doing things was becoming a little bit stale. I'm just trying new things to see what is fun, what works or what to avoid etc. This is why this blog might appear to have some kind of stylitic crisis. It will get worse with time.

My 'main social media' is already annoing to upkeep and I don't want my hobby project to turn out the same way. That's why there is going to be experiments and assorted stuff in this blog. I might even throw in some traditional paintings, worldbuilding, actual dnd statblocks or what ever I come up with.

The focus will be on Fein and Astarion but don't get spooked if one post is 20 h digital illustration and the next is loose watercolour with metallic embellishments.

[marrasvalkea]

Another evening of late act 3.

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The way to the Iron Throne was found eventually.

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Somewhere along the post game adventures these two make their way to a cottage. This was Fein's idea. Remote location in cold part of the world would not have been Astarion's first choice (or second or third) but Fein sold the idea well.

[marrasvalkea]

We could have been fighting the ghaik invasion.