Next Af attack done of Edra, who belongs to @alienturnipp
Partially caught a timelapse as i remembered just a little after the messy sketch phase, ✌️
Under the cut bc of light flickering from the fast changes later on,
Hi! I’m Jura online, but I also go by my name – Hao – or my handle @alienturnipp. I am a Vietnamese artist based in Canada, currently working full-time as a Graphic & Web Designer but also dipping my hands into other creative projects. On Tumblr, you will probably see me posting a lot of Dragon Age fan work and personal art as well :”D
Many of my art inspirations come from western dark fantasy, but I’m slowly reconciling my artistic expression with my own culture through various means. Designing Vietnamese clothes in high fantasy settings has a special place in my heart, and I hope to learn and grow in the future.
Nice to meet you, Jura! She has picked out some of her artwork to share with you all here.
Check out more of Jura’s art over at her Tumblr @alienturnipp!
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We are highlighting some of Tumblr’s talented artists of Asian descent all month as part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! Check them out here.
For @alienturnipp who helped when I opened emergency commissions, thank you so much!
Also technically a style glowup with how I do my portraits?
Drawing Edra is always a joy and drawing Edra in this glowup style is a lot of fun. Also this gives me more chances to learn how to have more patience when drawing accessories ajhfjskdjf
Interested in commissioning me? Click the source!💗
For @alienturnipp, from the angst prompt list for Nanders, “people who are okay don’t act like this”
@dadrunkwriting
Pairing: Nathaniel Howe/ Anders
Characters: Anders, Nathaniel Howe
Tags: Awakening fun, canon-typical Circle abuse
Rating: Mature
*
Nathaniel is not, habitually, heavy footed. On more than one occasion, the commander’s Antivan lover had suggested he take up a career in dance, ( “so light are your dainty footsteps, mi amigo.”) He’s not sure whether Anders knows this. This is largely because after three incidents in which Nathaniel had caused the mage to fall into something alarmingly akin to a panic attack, Nate has made an effort to be heavy footed around him.
Still, Anders jumps when Nathaniel knocks on the door to his room. The door is open - Nathaniel has never known Anders to close it, and the mage himself is standing in fairly sparse surroundings looking...lost. The expression fades almost as soon as Nathaniel catches it, like a mirage, Instead Anders gives him a smile as bright and thin as cheap paint.
“Howe! Wasn’t expecting you...here. How do you do that? You always seem to melt out of the blighted shadows.”
Anders laughs, but the sound rings hollow, and his long fingers shake a little even as he brushes them against his robe. Nathaniel frowns. “Are you alright?”
It’s been three weeks since he and the mage were conscripted by the warden commander. More has happened in those three weeks than most of the time Nathaniel spent soldiering in the marches, but Anders still acts as if he’s only just arrived. It’s...disconcerting.
The mage, for his part, smiles again, “Oh yes, don’t worry about me, I’m not going to go all demon on you.” He wiggles his fingers, as if to emphasise his point, and his light brown eyes flicker over Nathaniel’s shoulder, to the empty corridor beyond.
Nathaniel knows that no one is there - he makes it his business to know when he’s being watched - but he turns anyway, and cannot help but feel the pantomime must be painfully obvious as he makes a show of checking to see if anyone is there. In the low, rainy grey light of Amaranthine it’s hard to tell, but when he turns back he thinks he can see Anders flushing.
Anders claps, and seems to startle himself with the volume of the sound (outside, a few of the mabari start barking, and he stiffens almost imperceptibly.) “So! Does the commander need me? Has she finally realised she has no use for me after all? Time for me to get shipped back off to the Circle? Between you and me, I think I’ll put up a fight. For old time’s sake, you know.”
Nathaniel’s frown deepens, and he moves to cross the threshold into Anders’ chamber, but hesitates. Something at the back of his head tells him that he needs to respect the mage’s space, and whether it’s old prejudice or gut instinct, Nate can’t quite force himself to disregard it. Instead he shakes his head, “Why would you think that?”
Anders laughs, and again, it rings hollow. “Oh, well, you know. It’s been a week and I haven’t been forced to risk my life again, so. I figured…”
Nathaniel cannot shake the irritating feeling that he’s missing something. “She cares about you a great deal. You knew each other in the Circle, didn’t you?”
Anders snorts, and it’s graceless enough that Nathaniel believes it’s honest. “As much as you could know anyone there. And she was younger than me. Mages aren’t allowed to mix with apprentices once we’ve passed our Harrowing.” Anders wrinkles his nose. “I suppose they want to stop us getting attached.”
“Why?” Nathaniel asks the question without meaning to and regrets it immediately. He’s certain he will not like the answer.
Anders shrugs, stiff and awkward in his tall frame. “Most of them die.”
Something of Nathaniel’s shock must show on his face, because Anders laughs - for real this time, though a little bitterly. His long hands flicker through the air like restless birds.
“Hate to break it to you Nate, but the Circle has a pretty high death rate.” Anders laughs again, higher pitched and a little manic. “Would you look at that? I’m a poet and I didn’t know it.”
Nathaniel crosses the threshold. He catches Anders hands without thinking, arresting their ceaseless, anxious movement through the empty air. Beneath his hands, Anders’ wrists are too thin. Nathaniel still isn’t entirely convinced the templars who’d caught Anders were feeding him. The mage, for his part, falls into startled silence. Nathaniel watches his pulse racing through the thin skin of his throat as he swallows, and is reminded of nothing so much as a hare.
But then he looks up into Anders’ brown, golden eyes, and sees the fierce thread of rebellion there (“I think I’ll put up a fight. For old time’s sake, you know”), and Nathaniel realises that Anders has never been anything other than a fox: wily and wild and refusing to be tamed. “What is the matter?”
Anders purses his lips. This close, he smells of the embrium and elfroot he carries with him on his belt. Nathaniel is half surprised he isn’t making poultices now. He usually was. He claimed it helped him think, but Nathaniel isn’t entirely sure it’s not just a habit he hasn’t shaken from making potions for the Circle.
Anders pulls his arms back and Nathaniel lets him, not following as Anders backs up in the direction of one of the thin, hard pallet beds they used in the soldiers’ dormitories. The commander must have dragged it up here specially, though he couldn’t imagine why. Anders follows his gaze and coughs another laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Oh, that. Sorry, couldn’t sleep on goosefeathers. Too damn soft. I mean what’s laying your head down at night if you don’t wake up in pain?”
Nathaniel decides that Anders doesn’t actually want an answer to that, and presses on to the subject that he’s avoiding. “People who are okay don’t act like this.”
Anders flashes him another sharp, crooked grin and again Nathaniel catches the fire of anger in his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nathaniel clenches his teeth. Delilah had never explained that being kind would take so much blighted work. (He can almost hear the commander in his head, laughing at him for that.) Anders is pacing back and forth in front of his thin, poorly appointed bed, and his hands have started moving again. Nathaniel speaks before Anders’ nervous energy manages to infect him too.
“You have refused to acquire any material possessions other than that pillow, which you hide most of the time. You are stockpiling food beneath the floorboards,” Nathaniel nods at the one uneven plank which had often been the secret to his own childhood hiding places, “ for reasons I do not understand. You never close your door and yet you seem outright terrified whenever anyone enters a place you consider to be private. If you bathe I haven’t seen it, though I must assume that you do as you have not yet begun to smell. You are avoiding...everyone, but especially the commander, despite her efforts and obvious desire to get to know you better. For some reason you still think that she - or any of us - would turn you in to the Circle without a second thought.”
Anders frowns at that, stopping mid-step to look at him with something that is either curiosity or pain in his eyes. “Wouldn’t you?”
Nathaniel stares at him - and feels, for a moment - his own foolish heart plummet like lead into his stomach. “I - no.” Mouth suddenly dry, Nathaniel wets his lips and tries to speak past the lump in his throat (past the voice in the back of his head, he’s afraid of you, everyone’s afraid of you, just like your father).
Anders’ expression softens, and his shoulders drop. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
Nathaniel blinks, and tries to shake off the feeling of being rooted to the spot. “Of course.”
Anders’ mouth quirks upward at the corner. Outside there’s the gentle patter of the autumn rain against the muddy courtyard, bouncing off the mens’ new armour like a thousand soft, tiny bells. After a moment, Anders sits down, heavily, on the thin mattress, and gestures for Nathaniel to step forward.
Feeling as if he’s suddenly been freed of some strange, invisible spell, Nathaniel does so, almost toppling to sit on the floor in front of Anders as he looks at his hands. Anders breaks the new and sudden quiet, running the fingers of his left hand over the knuckles of his right. “They broke my hands.” The admission is so quiet and so unexpected that Nathaniel is almost unsure he heard it. But then Anders lets out a long, shaking breath and continues. “I was...half drunk with magebane so I didn’t...have you ever felt pain without emotion? It’s so hard to describe. Like shock, I guess. You register that something terrible has happened and that it hurts. But the grief, the anger, the fear. All that comes later. They let it heal naturally. So my hands are crooked now.” Anders splays his fingers in the air between them, and Nathaniel can see now, as he hadn’t before, the way his knuckles do stand a little crooked, the way a nose heals when it breaks.
Nathaniel’s voice is rough when he speaks. “Why?”
Anders shrugs, and his expression is distant. “I don’t remember exactly. It was whilst I was in solitary. They were always doing…” His features shutter into a mask so impassive that even Nathaniel cannot read it, and he draws in a quick deep breath and exhales again. “It doesn’t matter.” He offers Nathaniel a small smile, and nods at the door. “I keep the door open because I haven’t had a door, ever. When I was a child I was too young and small to have my own room. In the Circle only templars and Senior Enchanters are granted the luxury of such privacy, and I was neither.” Anders nods at the floorboards. “I...One of the first punishments they’d go to was restricting rations.” Anders’ mouth curls into a thin smile. “I think some of them just wanted to see how long I could go. Caught them making bets on it, once.” Anders shakes his head, as if he’s dislodging the memory from his mind like a cat shaking off water. He spreads his hands wide. “I don’t...know what to do with all this. Everything I’ve ever been told is that I can’t have it. Whatever it is.”
Nathaniel resists the urge to say freedom. He isn’t entirely sure that it’s true. Anders, on the bed, sighs and slides down from the mattress to the floor, easily framing Nathaniel with his long legs, the tabard of his robe falling heavy and velvet between his legs. Nathaniel averts his eyes. Anders’ laugh is rough and low and warm, and then his (crooked) fingers catch Nathaniel’s head and turn it back to look at him.
“That I understand.” Anders leans forward, until his chest is pressing against his bent knees. He smiles at Nathaniel, sweet and a little shy, and this close Nate can see that his eyelashes are almost as golden as his hair. Anders’ other hand comes up to catch the other side of Nathaniel’s face, and Nate doesn’t resist when Anders draws him closer to brush a kiss against his lips. “Thank you for asking, though.”
For a moment they’re quiet. Far off, from downstairs, there’s the sound of Oghren bellowing and Sigrun cackling, followed by a clattering or armour as one or the other of them gives chase. Anders’ thumb runs over Nathaniel’s cheek, and Nathaniel reaches up to catch his wrist and press his hand closer. He waits until Anders meets his eyes to speak. “I would fight with you.” A shadow of a frown passes over Anders’ brow, and Nathaniel clarifies before he can ask, “ If they tried to take you away. Back to the Circle. I would fight by your side.”
Anders’ mouth twitches into a rueful smile, though the pad of his thumb keeps running softly over Nathaniel’s cheek. “Even against the commander? She’s the Hero of Ferelden, you know.”
Nathaniel shifts closer, letting go of Anders’ wrist to reach up and cup the back of his head, gently, firmly, pulling him closer until their foreheads are touching. “Even her. Against the wardens, the templars, chevaliers and darkspawn, Anders. I will not let them take you. Not whilst I am breathing.”
When Anders breathes out, Nathaniel feels the shudder of it where their bodies are touching. Anders doesn’t look at him when he replies. “Don’t say that. Someone might make you prove it.”
Nathaniel huffs, pulling back to look into Anders’ eyes. “Let them.” He catches one of Anders’ hands and pulls it between them, running his fingers over Anders’ crooked knuckles. “This is not Justice. I’ve met Justice.” He looks up, offering a smile which Anders returns, “He looks like a walking corpse. But, truly.” Nathaniel bends and presses a kiss to Anders’ palm, and watches pink flush through his cheeks like a sunrise. “This is not just. And I will not let them have you. I swear it.”
Anders shakes his head, shutting his eyes as his brow twists with a frown despite the smile on his lips. “I want to believe you.”
Nathaniel holds Anders’ hands tightly between his own, and presses a kiss to his forehead. “Perhaps, one day, you will.”
A request I did for @alienturnipp who asked me to draw her gorgeous Cirilla Hawke. 🥰🥰🥰 I had so much fun working on the pose and figuring out the background, Ciri's outfit was a joy to work on to even the smallest detail! She's so pretty and also gotta love how she's paired with Anders?? Anders deserves some love too. Thanks for asking me to draw her!
They asked me to draw their Lavellan oc, Edra as the Moon tarot card with a full outline and basic sketch to use as a base from and even detailed everything they’d like to see like the Inquisition banner and the Eluvian and I just?? Thanks so much for the huge help oml All the references I had from you of Edra was so helpful and I appreciate all the help plus again it forced me out of my common aversion from patterns! It got very fun actually figuring out how I’ll translate his clothing pattern into my own style uxgviuxg I stared at an eluvian photo for a long while to figure out how to translate it and when I did figure out it was so fun to work on! All of the gold details worn by Edra got the old lineart treatment of me colouring the lineart and it actually worked well! The moon came out like a halo with shards of broken glass while the Inquisition banner ended up with Dalish colours in a blend of the organisation they’re leading and the culture they’re born in. Also one of the stuff I smile at is the crying side of Edra because of the small details I did like the tear tracks and the reddened eyes. All in all, this piece was an adventure plus it really makes me work on patterns (as all did my other commissions tbh thanks for pushing me to do those yall) I should really strive to continue doing patterns even when not doing comms! ALSO another part I got giddy with drawing was the hairpin and the ring cause of the little details there and then the EARRINGS lord everything here was such a delight to work on but the gold accessories are always such a joy to do xugfvxuv
Though I need to really learn more about Edra still, I love his whole design and his vibe. He was a joy to draw and I was so in love with his design. Thank you so much for commissioning me!!
