Versatile Mess

Art v Artist 2025 edition featuring TWO cause this was the year I began collaborating with friends! (Pls click on each image for less crunchy quality!)

Left fts my favourite pieces of the past year, and a disclaimer the hand with two thumbs is intentional due to weird sci fi character design and is not AI!

Right fts full suite of character art @suddenlyshouting and I did for our DnD campaign’s 5th birthday 🎈 ft suddenly’s designs and my colours.

“One morning, we woke up in an alley. To the smell of urine, alcohol, trash and gasoline, with a dim sense of a notion, we’d held something in our hands, that was bigger than us or God, and we can never touch again.”

— Last Song, Jason Webley

Breaking the art block with another member of the Auld Reekie coterie, Gellart. One of few surviving members of the Thames Tunnel Nosferatu who fell to the Second Inquisition in London, he drove up to Edinburgh with his torpored sire in the boot of his car, a trusty spade, and a name to find: Hollis, the Malkavian.

Style studies are a lot more fun when smashing your favourite video game property (disco Elysium) with you and your friend’s OCs. Gellart belongs to @suddenlyshouting

“Have another taste, it will go away, Just a little shame, all it's gonna take”

— Salivate, Sir Chloe

Time to meet the next member of the restarted Auld Reekie coterie, Tessa the (definitely not being haunted by a somehow present reflection) Lasombra. I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with her recent near diablerie of her ventrue ex girlfriend…Keeping with the Disco Elysium style because it makes my brain go brrr.

“In the tower above the earth, there is a view that reaches far, where we see the universe, I see the fire, I see the end.”

—The Seers Tower, Sufjan Stevens

Restarted our Auld Reekie VtM Campaign after a three year torpor, which means bringing Hollis the Malkavian detective (my first ever VtM OC) back to (un)life. Revisiting their design with the iconic Disco Elysium art style felt appropriate, as this “Omen of Doom” clocks back in for business.

Signed off the PhD due to mental health so felt apt to crack open Disco Elysium and try my hand at some style studies.

Detail of “An Introduction to Society, Miss Hyacinthus Haus” (est -300 to 400 years ago)(oil on canvas)

This painting provides rare insight into both the more elusive aspects of high eleven society, but also its sitter, the then, ‘Miss’ Hyacinthus Haus. Not yet past her first century, this painting announces the entry of Heironymus and Wisteria Haus’ sole child into wider society. Three centuries later, the portrait remains in the halls of the family estate, although the prolonged absence of its subject from there should be noted. Her legacy, it seems, invested elsewhere. Following recent galas, guests have remarked upon an odd sulphuric smell hanging around the painting, any who meet its gaze finding themselves overwhelmed by a sudden intense, but brief, furore. Perhaps it is finally time for the elder Haus’ to draw the curtains upon it.

———

Professor Dr Hyacinth Haus is my character in a DnD x UVG campaign (think post post post apocalypse). A former revolutionary turned arms dealer, Haus has been forced back out into the world from which she had become a recluse after her human husband’s death. Haus is finally witnessing the impact her legacy has had on the world around her, and her new patron is only too keen to keep her on her path to destruction.

Disclaimer: Fuck AI, I draw weird hands how man intended (whilst swearing and crying on procreate)

Detail of “Angel’s Rogue” (n.d.)(oil on canvas)(Angel x22)

It’s a rare occurrence to see a redlander depicted in either this medium, or such fine materials, but it would seem this figure had caught the eye(s) of the porcelain face(s) of The Last Serai. Those who have witnessed the painting in full glory, in Angel X22’s embassy office, will note it is framed by real wood: its subject matter clearly meaning a lot to the prince(s). Most note the additional fingers, but some whisper of a weirder phenomenon still, a warping effect on the painting, the arms stretching out beyond the canvas, before snapping back to their painted position, ever under the watchful eyes of their porcelain prince.

— — —

Tor’Coder is an OC belonging to a friend and fellow artist of mine for our DnD x UVG campaign (think post post post apocalypse). They’re a rogue and revolutionary with a true heart, caught up in a storm of plotting and intrigue beyond their wildest dreams/nightmares.

Detail from “Portrait of a Young Elsedez D’Azure.”

Rumour has it that not long after the D’Azur family’s fall from grace, this painting began to glow, and when its cloth cover was moved, a mysterious pattern of tattoos had formed on the arm of the young Halfling, painted as though they’d been there the whole time.

———

Elsedez D’Azure, was created by a friend for our DnD x UVG Campaign (think post-post-post apocalypse earth). Her family’s decision to try and raise The Blue God- essentially Cthulhu - did not go down well. Nevertheless Elsedez is determined that she will carry the voice of her god forward, and her god determined to leave his mark on her in turn.

Diversity win! This arms dealer is an absent mother!

🪻Professor Doctor Hyacinth Haus, Elf, any pronouns. DND 2e x Ultra Violet Grasslands

🪻 The gif above features her signature spell of the campaign: Haste.

Drawn and animated on Procreate, referencing costume designs for Kleya in Andor s2.

An astral map I designed for a west marches style DnD (2e) campaign I’m in, set in The Ultraviolet Grasslands, encircled by The Feathered Serpent (serpent based on @suddenlyshouting’s design). Constellations based off @perseiis cleric’s beautiful descriptions of The Fast Stars.

“Some things just have to die.” “All things must.”

Three banners designed with @suddenlyshouting of the Heroes of the Lowlands to mark our campaign’s 5th birthday - we’ve crawled our way through the xp of levels 1-19, only one left to go. (Click on images individually for better quality).

Image 1 (l-r): Nadiya Perditus; Ser Coriakin Galswynth; Amaranth Nerath; Helion Dartmoor; Desdemona Springflower.

Image 2 (l-r): ft temporary PCs - Malavin Galswynth; Kurzak Khrun; Valante Windwalker.

Image 3 (l-r): ft draconic form alts for two of the PCs - Nadiya Perditus; Ser Coriakin Galswynth; Amaranth Nerath; Helion Dartmoor; Desdemona Springflower.

Brooch with Intaglio of a Toreador, believed to be Ophelia Mikhaelous (Also called “The Dawn of the Danube” and “Muse of Pleasure”), childe of Petronius and grandchilder of Michael. Records indicate her siring took place in the late 910s-early 920s, with scholars agreeing it happened around Romanus I Lecapenus’ usurpation and appointment as co-emperor. Ophelia was known to have been instrumental in introducing Zoe Carbonosina to Emperor Leo the Wise, and had been a close presence in the young Constantine VII’s life. It is widely agreed that her removal would’ve been a necessary component in Romanus’ plans.

Etchings on the reverse of the brooch indicate it to have been a gift to Taltos Keszi Zselyke, a member of House Obertus, and clan Tzimisce. Historians believe the two women to have been “close friends,” although the sheer haul of artefacts preserved that the two gifted to one another may suggest a less orthodox interpretation of their relationship. Many of these artefacts bear the craftsmark of a “Rhododaktylos,” which translates to “Rose-Fingered.” Little else is known about the woman who bore this epithet, but none deny the skill in her work, with this piece notable for the glow of sunlight that seems to be captured in the setting.

—-

Ophelia was created by me, to play in @8megabyte Ancient Nights Campaign (set in Constantinople — featuring our characters as ghouls for the first two decades of the 10th Century, and then continuing to play them as vampires after this point). Zselyke belongs to @suddenlyshouting and Rhododaktylos to @perseiis

Final set of PC designs with @suddenlyshouting for our dnd campaign: The Dragonspawn.

Row 1: Nadiya Perditus | Way of Mercy Monk & Grave Cleric | She/Her.

Row 2: Helion Dartmoor | Swashbuckler Rogue, Hexblade Warlock, and Bard | He/Him

Taken as a war prize, Helion found himself transformed into a dragonspawn by the Imperial Cult of the Red Hand, devoted to the God of Creation and Destruction.

In a moment of desperation as the party was falling at the hands of the Imperial Cult, Nadiya used what she thought to be a healing aid, only to find herself cocooned in scales and faced with a choice: might or mercy? She awoke to her new form covered in bronze.