#vedis

This was quite a challenge - coming up with something totally unique yet still feeling like the Brotherhood. I was tinkering with stuff even after I finished the coloring. I knew going in he had to be large, muscled, and blue eyed, with the Brotherhood tattoo on his bicep, as per the description in the book. After some experimenting I decided on giving him a beard, deep-set eyes, a pear shape, and to incorporate a lot of circles. I figure using circles would set him apart from the rest of the Brotherhood, which are a lot of squares, teardrop and triangle shapes.

For Dark Kingdom Vedis, I incorporated a lot of the Dark Kingdom style - fur, belts, leather, facial hair, dark hair worn long. I made him a longbowman, as I feel like a ranged warrior would round out the group nicely. And I just find the idea of a big, hulking guy forgoing sword and axe, to riddle his enemies with arrows quite amusing. For some reason I pictured him as a few years older than the Brotherhood we meet in the series. I really wanted to give Brotherhood Vedis a slightly shady look. Like maybe there's a reason we never saw him with the rest of the Brotherhood. I mean, would you trust a man who trains captive animals for a ring of criminals? He also just blabbed to the Baron about the moonstone, the thing that he swore to defend, even at the risk of being controlled by the Mind Trap. Gotta love the idea of a shady Vedis who betrays the Brotherhood, and runs off to join a circus. Unfortunately the final pose came out stiff, but I'm blaming that on my sore shoulder.

The Vedis Eugene meets in the book I designed to be more world weary. Still a bit shady, but the book describes his voice as deep, yet soft, so I leaned into that with the pose. He's discarded every scrap of his old life: cut his hair shorter, forgone the fur and leather. He sports a brand new scar which I'm sure has a great story behind it. I kept his attire simple - perhaps trying to avoid too much attention for some reason. He's a bit more grizzled, and with more of a slouch, and a bit more kindness around his eyes. I read into him being very regretful over the Dark Kingdom, but it seems to me the wound goes a bit deeper than losing one's home. It's pure speculation, but again ties into my idea that he did not leave the Dark Kingdom on good terms, and is sorry for it.

Just the idea of Vedis - a knight fallen from grace, who winds up joining the circus with a criminal ringmaster and his gang of thugs - I would pay money for that story! That's such a good concept for a character. And pairing him up with a couple of kids like Eugene and Lance - what an absolutely fun adventure that would've been! Where is my story of a grumpy knight-turned-circus-conman taking two orphan would-be thieves under his wing as they try to discover the secrets of his shady past? Like I want to see twenty chapters of Vedis loudly complaining about these two kids, and then at the very end when the Baron tries to kill the annoying pipsqueaks, Vedis takes a stand, and finally does the right thing in his life, and reveals that he has all this knightly training and can actually give the Baron a real run for his money while Eugene and Lance set up the Biggest Con of the Century (and also manage to save Vedis, and he won’t say it, but he’s secretly very proud). I'm sorry, Vedis. You deserve your own story, bud.

So Vedis doesn't have a ton of physical description in the book outside of his build (big boi) and eye color (blue), so I had a lot of liberty and just played with it! His only clothing item that gets mentioned is a sleeveless leather vest- and apparently I decided that he’s rocking a tits out kinda look LMAO.

The Brotherhood tat is said to be on his bicep but it ended up on his shoulder b/c I thought it looked natural there.

I wanted to differentiate him from Quirin and Ed, but I think he still ended up looking too much like them/there’s some sameface going on- so along w/ his proportions, that might be smth to try to stylize and push more if I draw him again.

And I really said just give me that discount Sky/rim look for his Brotherhood armor lmao- but since Quirin and Ed are already plate armor-wearing, tanky, classic knights, Adira’s monk-like, and both she and Hector wear lighter armor, I thought it might be interesting to go in a diff direction for him? Some of that barbarian/berserker warrior vibe.

Might’ve strayed a bit too close to Hector’s aesthetic (since I think it’d work equally well on him) or gone a bit overboard w/ the lion pelt but it was fun.