lady-quen

[lady-quen]

hello!! just a lil message to say I think Mael is really cool and I like him a lot! 10000/10 character design, have a wonderful day <3

🥹

Oh my goodness thank you so much. Comments like these mean a lot to me, I am so happy people like my funky necromancer. I find your boy Rory so very delightful as well, I don't think you see asura characters with a bow that often!! Always a joy to see on my dash :D

[lady-quen]

Maelmordha /ˌmeɪl ˈmɔːrə/ (he/him) - Magister of the Priory, Pact Commander, disgraced Third Knight of Thorn, Champion and Mouth of Aurene, undead lich (1320 AE - 1330 AE - current)

Ah yes, the reference. Hands you the wretched plant (again). I have so much miscellaneous art of him but here's something more organized, at last. Some additional notes below!

Golden blood color

5'10" (178cm)

Pansexual

Soundless as of death

Mostly immortal

Golden eye color, blue when channeling diabolistic magic. Often has sparks of blue inside pupils at rest

Inside of mouth matches glow color, sharp canines

Can still utilize "normal" necromancy, armor and sword glow green at rest, blue when utilizing diabolistic magic

Left arm partially mutated into Vinetooth arm during HoT - rough bark scales, optional claws (trims them short)

Specializes in cryomancy, umbramancy, alysidomancy (forges magic chains from shadows)

Extremely cold flame sourced from the Soul Eater's essence

Consumes magical items through chest mouth

Cursed infernal stigmata manifests over wounds inflicted by Balthazar. Main chest scar utilized as primary conduit

Uses sealing spells to prevent magic from going out of control. New Krytan tattoos read: "Relent, enshrine in chain this sin of mine, I am become mine own cage."

Also has one of the above sealing spells around his neck, it goes under his side leaves.

Controls shades and shadow hounds Sköll and Hati

Can animate corpses using shades

[lady-quen]

More postgame/undefined future verse Mael shenanigans.

When you're a hella old Dragon Champion lich your perception of time shifts and you desire a long nap sometimes. Entering into a sort of hibernation/meditation and telling mortals to "wake you up if destruction befalls Tyria" can end up in some confusion and accidentally becoming "The Dark Lord who awakens to herald the coming end" or some similar bullshit, but then someone actually wakes you up and you prepare to complain about it but you forget your body still reacts to stimuli such as cold despite you not feeling it.

Anyway, yes, he keeps the Dark Lord title for his ego.

[lady-quen]

Maelmordha /ˌmeɪl ˈmɔːrə/ (he/him) - Magister of the Priory, Pact Commander, disgraced Third Knight of Thorn, Champion and Mouth of Aurene, undead lich (1320 AE - 1330 AE - current)

Ah yes, the reference. Hands you the wretched plant (again). I have so much miscellaneous art of him but here's something more organized, at last. Some additional notes below!

Golden blood color

5'10" (178cm)

Pansexual

Soundless as of death

Mostly immortal

Golden eye color, blue when channeling diabolistic magic. Often has sparks of blue inside pupils at rest

Inside of mouth matches glow color, sharp canines

Can still utilize "normal" necromancy, armor and sword glow green at rest, blue when utilizing diabolistic magic

Left arm partially mutated into Vinetooth arm during HoT - rough bark scales, optional claws (trims them short)

Specializes in cryomancy, umbramancy, alysidomancy (forges magic chains from shadows)

Extremely cold flame sourced from the Soul Eater's essence

Consumes magical items through chest mouth

Cursed infernal stigmata manifests over wounds inflicted by Balthazar. Main chest scar utilized as primary conduit

Uses sealing spells to prevent magic from going out of control. New Krytan tattoos read: "Relent, enshrine in chain this sin of mine, I am become mine own cage."

Also has one of the above sealing spells around his neck, it goes under his side leaves.

Controls shades and shadow hounds Sköll and Hati

Can animate corpses using shades

[lady-quen]

*points at character* hes dead and he's my little guy

[lady-quen]

trahearne has literally never read as a 25 year old to me. and i guess in the context of sylvari he WAS literally the oldest dude of the species at the time so interpretation can kind of go both ways but outside of that he's always been the burdened-by-his-past-failings 40-something year old in my mind. young scholar with a nigh insurmountable destiny? no. that's the melancholic middle-aged former hero whose help we need to put together a team for one last ride.

[lady-quen]

Locking tf in, gonna make Mael a proper ref that isnt outdated 💪

[lady-quen]

How I Animate

The Technique:

I draw the frames and then I use the liquify tool to push the lines into the next frame and redraw them where I need to. This allows me to keep the lines consistent, but gives me the control of frame by frame animation bc I am still making each frame manually! I also use 3d models as reference to help me with the angles! Super important to use reference while you animate (and with art in general), if youre no good handling 3d models then act it out and record yourself!

The Theory:

i think most people are at least loosely familiar with the 12 principles of animation (if youre not, heres a 2.5 minute video showcasing them!), but may not necessarily know how to employ them. the main 3 i tend to focus on when I animate is rhythm, telegraphing, and inertia so ill cover those there 👍

1. Timing & Rhythm

Timing is how you space out your frames both in how long an individual frame is held for, and also when you drawn an inbetween of two frames you can favour one frame slightly more than the other instead of drawing the exact average of the cels, giving the favoured cel more timing weight.

Left line has the cels evenly spaced out on the timeline, right holds the first cel for longer and the second cel slightly favours the last frame. It creates a more interesting rhythm to the animation! Rhythm is how I think of animation timing. Theres a beat like a song to every animation I make, and creating an interesting beat is what makes an animation fun to watch (for me, anyway):

2. Anticipation / Telegraphing

Before I animate a big change in movement, I like to telegraph that its coming. Usually this is doing a little counter movement in the opposite direction, but thats not the only way to telegraph a motion, e.g. eye movement can telegraph a head turn!

3. Follow-through / Overshoot / Inertia

Unless the movement is mechanical, it wont come to a hard stop and will have some level of bounce or easing out to it. How much "bounce" you add will have a big impact on how the animation feels, but a very subtle bounce will add a natural feeling to the end of a motion.

Secondary animations will use a lot of this, note that the head and the hand have a small amount of continuous motion (primary animation), and then the hair has a lot of bounce and inertia (secondary animation which reacts to the primary animation). Note the different amounts applied to the braid vs the sideburn vs the bangs

anyway! I hope this was insightful ❤️ if you like my art you can commission me by the by :)

[lady-quen]

"a champion past their prime" all the digs at the commander are so funny especially if your commander is like. Not fucking old at all? like my commander is younger than braham. like literally 27 bitch hasnt even gotten to their prime what do u meaaaan. especially when half the people ur next to are like 1000 years old

[lady-quen]

the idea of your own art style is both unattainable and stupiddddd. ive noticed i draw more when i allow myself to take from others. you can never be fully unique. you have to have fun + let the inspiration take hold.... ..

i remember watching "how to find your art style" videos when i was younger and wondering when i would 'get' it. you dont get it. . thats not how that works. everything anyone has ever made is an amalgamation of everything theyve ever seen and felt and loved. and that is awesome 👍 who gives a fuck

[lady-quen]

"Am I yours to command? Does the collar 'round my neck have your name on it?"

"You wear a collar."

"Recreationally."

A quick thing of Mael dressed in modern clothes, for no particular reason whatsoever.

[lady-quen]

My people, I'm gonna stream for ArenaNet on their Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel soon! Joko art incoming! [WATCH HERE]

at 8 PM CET - 12 PM PT - 3PM EDT today (19th March 2025)

[lady-quen]

Louise Glück, from Meadowlands; "Departure"

[Text ID: "The night isn't dark; the world is dark. / Stay with me a little longer."]

[lady-quen]

Look at Mael's smirk I can't he's so ✨️💃✨️

Best use of new emotes: bother old man

[lady-quen]

After all that theorising about what Mordremoth absorbing an extremely powerful kryptis could have led to regarding the sylvari (what with all their similarities), I kind of realised how Gwyllion has a striking resemblance to Deimos and Cerus.

[lady-quen]

she res on my urrection till i come. (back. (from the dead))

[lady-quen]

I've definitely had my mouse cursor "disappear" off to some random place on my screen, and then I'm like wait where did it go lol. But it may just be all the wild swinging in action. Definitely experienced sluggish inputs. I walk with w instead of the mouse buttons so, sometimes my character will just stop walking/walk in short bursts, and it's only gw2 and my internet is fine, even changed the battery in my keyboard and it wasn't that either.

I fail at jumping puzzles because the jump presses with a delay and I just fall. I die because dodge registers with a delay. It's very eugh all around lately, esp in the more punishing content 😔

Does anyone else experience issues with their mouse on gw2 only? Keyboard issues as well, but those are sporadic and more explainable by lag.

Namely, I use my left hand to press my 1-5 keys and my mouse to manually click the rest and rotate my camera. The problem occurs when I want to rotate it fast. I click and drag the screen, but sometimes nothing happens and it has led me to fail the "quickly, look away!" eye mechanics, for example.

I've also swung my camera from right to left and my game decided I wanted to click a player in my party instead, and then the input duplicated at times and clicked one of the player menu options. I've kicked people from my party in this manner before, somehow. Now, explaining that is fun.

My question is, ✨️what the hell,✨️ but mostly Anyone Else or is my mouse just Weird