Meet Astana RissĆ©, a half-elf bard and a dancer by trade. Sheās known for preforming lovely flamenco style dances with castanets and bells on her ankles, and for the unique makeup that she has on her chin and belly.
Astana is an overall cheerful character that likes putting up shows in public to net some coins, something she learned very young while still under the wings of āMama RissĆ©ā.
Mama RissĆ© was the head of the orphanage that took Astana in, the Gullās Roost, and through a lot of passion and sincere care, āMamaā grew to be much more than a nickname as in the eyes of all those kids raised under her care, she was their real mother. Together they formed a really, reeeeally big family. Its said that to every city you go, youāll surely find someone from The Gullās Roost!
Astana felt so grateful for everything she had that even after being old enough to leave she instead decided to stay around to help run the orphanage. However, as good of a life she had so far, tragedy awaited. Flames consumed everything that was once recognizable as the orphanage, taking with it Mama herself. Astana, that wasn't there when the fire started, got to the Gullās as fast as she could and even managed to save a few children stuck in there, but sadly not soon enough to save Mama, and in her attempt to do so she got severely burned. The only reason nothing worse happened is because Mama pushed Astana away, a scene that would haunt ever after.
Astanaās life after that become quite... difficult. Sheās still to this day trying to come to terms with everything that happened, fighting away her survivorās guilt for leaving behind the one that raised her, and no praise as āheroā for saving a few children from the fire helped her ease this feeling.
Her scars ran thought most of her body making dancing, something really dear to her, really hard; both because of how self conscious she felt for her appearance and because of the pain.
But its not like she could stay like that forever.
Astana rose up and started picking herself up little by little. Now adopting the āRissĆ©ā name in honor of her Mama, sheās working towards recovering the joy in her dance that once brought such happiness to her, her brothers and her Mama. In order to help a bit, she have an extensive routine of passing ointments over her burns to help ease the pain, and after that, some make up magic turns those scars into some incredibly intricate designs, which unless you took a closer look, you most likely wouldn't even notice whatās underneath.
She now travels trying to find her brothers and sisters that left before the fire, so she can let them know of what happened and give their mamaās grave a visit.
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Boy oh boy, that was one BIG commission, lemme tell ya... I was commissioned again by the wonderful client who asked me previously to do the Tabaxi paladin [that i would link here, but tumblr dont like links anymore, not even to my own page :)))) smile]
This time, the challenge was a small redesign based on the previous commission he got for his character + doing her on a very intimate moment.
After discussing a bit we came up to this and well, you can see all the process up there by yourself.
Man, this thing was a lot of work haha
But i love it! Awesome concept to work on and a really cool character.
Welp, hope yāall like it, cheers o/