#ambroys

The people-pleaser is unpleased when the people aren't pleased. Maybe 7/10 uncomfortable, not because you're making him worry about his future, but because you're implying you aren't impressed by his outfits and that is so much scarier.

The way he'd reply to this depends on whoever was asking, so I stitched together both modes for this. In the open, he would just give the "aaw what are you jealous? ♥" response. He's trained himself to avoid emotional meltdowns in public. His household has to put up with those instead! That first part, where he flips back and forth between egomania and insecurity via babbled rapid-fire questions, is is much, much closer to his unguarded feelings than what outsiders see.

Some part of him genuinely believes he does everything for his beloved but ever-demanding public. Dressing up to brighten their drab lives, saying "yes" to every dance as he's asked for at the latest gala, adding another fib to his fleet of little white lies that keep everything nice and copacetic, etcetera. Ambroys congratulates himself on his saintly selflessness, even if 1) no one even asked, 2) he always slips out of doing any unpleasant or difficult or unglamorous favors or 3) the real benefactor is himself.

How rich...

"Crap!! Guess I'm fighting my way out!!"

POV: You stole a sacred arcane tome from a cult leader, but him and his guards catch you in the act...

Last piece for the year! A redraw of an old piece!!

Lord Ambroys Belrose Desoleil

The last one I worked on. May one can tell this character is something really special to me.. and maybe that's one of the reasons this last portrait was a hell of a roller-coaster to me. Almost leading me to quit and abandoning the whole project. The reason why this particular painting has a different background than the other two is that I had to start over completely. The first mistake I made was the scale. At first I wanted to show way more of the character itself, what meant on the other hand, that all the details got way smaller and I just wasn't able to adequately handle that. The second problem was that I somehow messed up his face/expression and wasn't able to figure out what went wrong or what it was exactly, that make it seem so odd to me.. And last but not least, my absolute lack of understanding color.. yep, I like painting stuff but I don't really understand how colors work.. His mane/hair became my arch nemesis. Not that it is hard enough, to work with bright colors that are pretty close to each other, without outlines, no, I had absolutely no idea how many different colors are needed to mix blonde.. just to make that slight difference to his coat. The decision to use the "older" version of him wasn't helping either. His younger self doesn't have the straight mane/hair, which makes it way easier to let it look like "hair". Well, at least to me. But in the end I think I somehow managed it to a degree that it is acceptable (for my fourth time with oils). To end the part of my struggle with this one, there was one thing left I wish I had noticed earlier, and that's the position of his left arm. I just took the sketch from my first try and scaled it up, not noticing that the arm may look a little bit odd now.

But that's aside, I also had a lot of fun with the painting. I totally got lost in the rose on his revers (because I love roses the most) and there are some more details which made me really happy how they turned out. But I have to confess that I cheated a little on this painting as well. It's the only of the three portraits that isn't exclusively painted in oils. His horn is actually painted over with nail-polish to get that opalescent shimmer.

Ambroys' portrait took me about 90 hours (first try included). It's based on this drawing by @kwillow - how-much-conditioner-do-you-think-olderamby-goes -, which again means that I don't want to take any credit for the artwork itself.

Yes, Ambroys means a lot to me and that may be the reason I look more critical on this one. But the most important thing for me is, that the new owners, @chocodile and @kwillow, like them and can gain some joy out of my work. You guys gave me so much through your characters and their stories, and helped me through a very hard, and so far the darkest chapter of my life. And therefore, thank you!

The night, she calls them....

My recent artfights for

An attack for @kwillow of their character Ambroys (Amaranthine)!

👊 ArtFight. https://artfight.net/~viva_la_topknot   👊  Other ArtFight attacks.🎨 General art tag.