#Modelling: Leo Sanchez Studios

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Skrael Design Path

Rolling onward to the second of these Arcane Order closer looks and this time it's Skrael at the helm! As ever with these it is far from impossible something else will belatedly turn up. Should this occur, wherever it is added will have a [/edit xx/xx/xxxx] which includes a date marker. Just makes it easier to find the “new” thing :)

Given Skrael is often written by many fic writers as He/They, suppose we got some more non-binary wrongs going on. All for a good cause tho, right?

Skrael is unusual of the three in that his design, from what work is public, was cemented pretty early on. Still, Francisco Ruiz Velasco did have his own stab at a bunch of wizards which are nigh impossible to pin down if it was for any of the Arcane Trio specifically or not. This one will very understandably appear in all three as there could well be a Skrael potential here.

Source goes to Linkedin so may require an account.

According to Yingjue Chen who drew the below Ice Wizard designs, Sean Murray did a sketch which the most Skrael looking one is based. It's a pretty low chance of said sketch ever turning up but you never know.

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A coloured version of this very Skrael looking Skrael is also shown in the Art of Wizards panel on the height comparison chart too.

From there comes his final design plus quite literal gesture sketches. These are again by Yingjue Chen!

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Skrael next pops up in the hands of Betsy Bauer for his paint and turn around which much like Bellroc is a reference goldmine. He is no longer on her website but you can check out other things she did for ToA here.

Decided to add a trio of bonuses just for fun. You might have noticed the Order pops up in the Wizards credits sequence though unlike Trollhunters and 3Below, it is not Headless Studios. They were drawn in a similar way though! They are by Alison Donato.

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This is also a great excuse to yet again break out Francisco Ruiz Velasco's Order band poster again! In part due to him only appearing in colour keys for RotT otherwise.

Source goes to Linkedin so may require an account.

Of all the Order for some reason there's a lot of detail for Skrael's staff. Starting off we have the painted concepts by Yingjue Chen which we lack for Bellroc at this time.

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And from theeeere we have a whole bunch from Alison Donato including callouts! The small and texture free Skrael model resized for height comparison purposes will have been made at Leo Sanchez Studios.

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On the more magical front there is a tiny screenshot from the Art of Wizards panel which shows the magic effects for Skrael. It is unknown who the other images including what could be the ice bridge belong to however -

We do have a bigger version of the left image which we know is by Yingjue Chen! Aren’t effects neat?

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[/Edit 13/02/2025] The following was missed due to no obvious note of what it is on the original tweet this version is from and it's being added in now. This is the spell effect combining Bellroc, Skrael and the Green Knight's power into a single shot! It is by Isaac Orloff.

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Poking Rise of the Titans a moment, thanks to Andy Murray we have the glow up eye effect for Skrael. This has been cropped from a larger image for fitting this post reasons only.

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And for fun since we also have it, this is the Arcane Circle for Skrael which is shown on the Ice Titan. The Genesis Seal marker is on the same row as Bellroc so is not shown here. As above it has been cropped for fitting this post reasons only. This time they are by Sean Wang.

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Much like Nari, we do actually know what Skrael's development name: Thule! They're not in the most easy to spot place mind and likely why many have missed it over the years. One of them is in Alison Donato's file names on her website like so:

The other location is on one of the Felix Yang sequences that hasn't been converted from nyoom status yet. In this case, yeah you have to be very lucky to spot it:

It can can be found Here.

When all three posts are up there will be a link here to the other two members. For now it is a half completed placeholder:

Bellroc - Nari - Skrael

[yingjue]

My Jim troll design, this is really close to the end 3D model sculpted by Leo Sanchez. Sooooo many people touched this character and had an influence including Rustam Hasanov, Headless Studios, Gabo Camarillo and probably others I don’t remember. I’m incredibly happy to have had the chance to design such a beautiful character for Guilllermo Del Toro and will remember him or the rest of my life!

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Nari Design Path

We're now on the final of the trio and we're finishing up with Nari! Part of the reason she's last is there is So Much and given smacked straight into the image limit it was the right call. Think she is also a great reminder that there is no "central hub" for finding information scattered across multiple artists with some being lost over time. The only place that is anything like that is the Dreamworks vault, all this is by one dedicated person who despite doing their best can still miss things.

As ever with these it is far from impossible something else will belatedly turn up. Should this occur, wherever it is added will have a [/edit xx/xx/xxxx] which includes a date marker. Just makes it easier to find the “new” thing :)

Much like with Skrael opening with these guys again if for flow reasons this time round. Francisco Ruiz Velasco had his own stab at a bunch of wizards which are nigh impossible to pin down if it was for any of the Arcane Trio specifically or not. This one will very understandably appear in all three as there could well be a Nari potential here for all we know.

Source goes to Linkedin so may require an account.

Next up is Yingjue Chen's initial forest wizard concepts which you may recognise from the Bellroc thread. We've even got some deer ankles going!

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Her next iteration is Nari as we know her for the most part if more "adult" in appearance, longer hair, possible deer ankles and lots of veils.

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The "adult" Nari has popped up one other time namely through Francisco Ruiz Velasco doing his own exploration of the nature wizard and funky magic vines.

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After this it was decided to make Nari "younger" and more childlike in stature though at this point still keeping everything else about her design. Fandom has generally fallen into two camps as either seeing her as a literal child sharing a weird spot with Skrael there or as a small adult. This is in part why the quotation marks are being used. Next to her here is the nature wizard design recast as Bellroc before they went off to a different artist. This is Yingjue Chen again!

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For some reason have the left image entirely on its own and not entirely sure why. Anyway.

On the right is more veil tests that were tried out until it was decided it would be cost prohibitive, a common reason for cape loss in animation. Her hair was shrunk into the snazzy braid for the same reason. Her design would have further tweaks before settling, notably in the legs and how the leaf plates fit together if you compare the above and the below.

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After this we have Nari's paint over a Leo Sanchez Studios model complete with callouts! Thinks ended up being tweaked a little bit more which really shows how iterative the process of concept to final design can be. Bonus is good reference particularly for that braid.

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This is the point where you will see some creative work arounds for the image limit. Prior to his website being changed, Ivan Gozali had a bunch of sketches, some Bellroc sketches and a Jilaire beatboard. The Nari ones are still accessible through instagram if small. These are a smidge bigger though have been grouped into twos because of aforementioned limit.

He does mention a very interesting tidbit however:

Some character studies of Nari. Early in production we didn’t have much to go on. There were several design iterations, we even had several name changes. I was never much of a “concept” artist so please excuse with these off-proportion drawings. I always find joy exploring character behaviours and attitude.

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In addition there was this little animation which is on both instagram and on his tumblr. There he says:

Nari character from Wizards, inspired by a ‘feral boy’ character from Road Warrior, which was a good jumping point, but I’m mostly inspired by @glenkeaneprd Tarzan test.

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Also by one of the storyboarders we have this series of art by Bianca Siercke. Completely non-canon these were part of figuring out her character and no doubt helped the boarders figure her out best for drawing as well.

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This can of course also mean rock fists. Specifically in this case to quote:

"Nari playful personality was especially fun because of how it might effect her fighting style". "This was one of the explorations I did to figure out what kind of magic she might use".

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"This was an exploration of how Nari's magic might change depending on her mood".

Given she can use plants like a telephone according to Aaron, murder hands seem fair even if they were just part of figuring her out.

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"These were explorations trying to find Nari's personality and magic ideas. They're non canon".

This is the last one! Ironically enough the seeds did come back in a sense in the form of her potted plant in Rise of the Titans.

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Decided to add a trio of bonuses just for fun. You might have noticed the Order pops up in the Wizards credits sequence though unlike Trollhunters and 3Below, it is not Headless Studios. They were drawn in a similar way though! They are by Alison Donato.

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Now firmly onto RotT related artwork, these various disguises for Nari are by Betsy Bauer painted over Yingjue Chen's original! Should you so desire you can have chav Nari in your works and point to this as to why.

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Thanks to Andy Murray we have a paint and orthographic turnaround of the chosen Nari in a giant beanie. Gives a good look at the t-posing model as well should you need it.

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This is also a great excuse to yet again break out Francisco Ruiz Velasco's Order band poster again! Some imagery shenaniganry was done purely to ensure this got in here again.

Source goes to Linkedin so may require an account.

Returning to Yingjue Chen a moment, Nari's staff! This and Alison Donato's credits paintings are the only currently known artwork of it. It might not have been used much but she does very much have a stick just like the others.

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In the previous two design paths this is about when the Art of Wizards panel gets pointed to with the really tiny screenshot. In a unique twist to Nari and as a boon when smacked into the image limit, we have the full-sized versions of the very art shown there!

Next to the very tiny Nari is the left most vine.

And beside it is both the "flame" and the beam that will be used to bass boost the Heart of Avalon specifically. The below was originally on Betsy Bauer's website though is no longer available. Why things are saved off :)

Do you recall the green butterflies/moths Nari seemingly produced out of nowhere while at Hex Tech? Well thanks to Isaac Orloff we have their orthographic and their glowy effects!

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Moving onto the RotT spell front, when Betsy Bauer revamped her website it came with some brand new art we hadn't seen previously. Not only does it show her potted plant unfurling and name it as a passion flower, there's an additional view of Nari in her "Fish fear me" hat.

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We have that same flower exploding into a massive vine. Even has a callout specifically to Betsy Bauer's spell effects which is neat! This one is by Sean Wang.

Returning to Andy Murray a moment, we have the glow up eye effect for Nari. While not shown here for image limit reasons, the mind swap between Douxie and Nari effects plus the ripping him outta there is on the same sheet. The one below, which is purely Titan related has been cropped for fitting this post reasons only.

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This is the Arcane Circle for Nari which is shown on the Earth Titan. The Genesis Seal marker is on the same row as Bellroc so is not shown here. As above it has been cropped for fitting this post reasons only. This time they are once again by Sean Wang.

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Sean Wang also has this on her website showing additional effects and the rune usage on Nari specifically. The artwork on the left is from one of Alfonso Blaas' colour keys which shows the Genesis Seals being opened.

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Nearly there now! While mentioned earlier and to fit with the format of the other two posts, one of Nari's in development names was Ilnara which we found out thanks to Bianca Siercke.

To close up on a fun note, Yingjue Chen has a headcanon of "adult" Nari having Excalibur which Schildwand went and cosplayed!

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With the trio now complete, all the link hops between now work! When this is uploaded please allow chance for the links to Nari to be updated on the other posts.

Bellroc - Nari - Skrael

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Draal - Bular - Gunmar Design Path

Today we're taking a look at the very funky design path that Draal, Bular and Gunmar went on during Trollhunters pieced together as best as possible through the power of file names, matching things and the artbook. The order of events is as accurate as I can guess as for understandable reasons I cannot see an exact timeline.

First up from one of Headless Studios' posts we can see what is very definitely a purple Draal as I've been affectionately dubbing him looking a big brutal boy with Caveman Spongebob is also a frequent comparison.

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He appears again on Juan Solis' Artstation (The model is miscreditted as Headless Studios in the artbook) having gained a new fancy arm blade. The file name for this? TROLLHUNTERS_bular!

Source and of note there is also a Ms. Janeth on his vimeo account.

On the official Tales of Arcadia instagram he pops up again looking a lot more familiar in his blue though lacking a nose ring. It's very possible this stage was when he was still tied to Steve as a changeling's troll form which would account for the gruffer look.

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By the time we get to Alfonso Blaas's paint over on the 3D ambient occlusion model and Headless lineart Draal is looking much more like the troll we know and love!

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So what was going on with Bular if he was purple Draal? The short answer is at one point he was Gunmar's design which had a funky journey too. He sure went places before the finalised banger we got. This art is by Headless Studios.

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On Francisco Ruiz Velasco's blogspot account there are few bits of Trollhunters art from back when it's a film and the filenames in the url are very interesting, the first confirms that IS Gunmar while the second suggests it is the Battle of Killahead... The other thing? He only has one eye!

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This suggests that at some point during this design process he lost it.The following headshot is by Headless Studios is clearly a Bular design with the glowing eye that is a defining Gunmar trait becoming more evident

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"Gunmar" is getting closer to the Bular we know and love at this point and now in colour. Francisco Ruiz Velasco still has the filename whereas Headless Studios is really rolling with the funky glow.

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After the thread was posted (And on here) I managed to track down the Annie Awards slide which has an alternate expression on the right and the front view of the above image as well. This is being added for completion and because it’s neat!

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Headless Studios’ version was adapted over Francisco Ruiz Velasco's design as can be seen in this image collab between him, Sergio Casas and Alfonso Blaas. Is this the point of Bular and Gunmar officially split into separate characters? Could be!

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Along with the extra Bular art Gunmar art was found belatedly online! Some of these are in the artbook while others are unique to this.

Unknown artist/seeking confirmation - Top left

Rustam Hasanov - All middle images, top right and possibly top left

Headless Studios - Bottom left

Unknown artist/seeking confirmation - Bottom right

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[/edit 10/10/2021] The top right image source was discovered confirming it is indeed Rustam’s work! Given his description this is either before “Gunmar” hit his Bular stage or after their split.

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You sure went through a dramatic phase finding your voice Gunmar.

[/edit 23/05/2023] He appeared to cement with no design wiggle compared to Angor Rot’s more last minute change too. With the benefit of a close up of this chunk of Killahead by Anthony Romero we can even see his carvings.

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Thus Bular settles into his new found role of "the son of Gunmar" as shown in this Character Development by Leo Sanchez Studio & Visual Development/Shading n ​​​​​​​Lighting by Jonatan Catalan Navarrete and paint over the 3D ambient occlusion model by Alfonso Blaas his journey now completed.

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[/edit 23/05/2023] As some people might be using this thread as troll reference in general , we now have a clear shot of the skulls on Bular’s belt courtesy of Anthony Romero! 

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