#cousland x alistair

[xytaes]

alistair the man that u are…

[bisexualmultifandommess]

The relationship my Dragon Age character and Alistair has is basically

*One of them does anything*

The other:

[tethrras]

49 & 50 for the micro fics!!

49. nightfall & 50. accost

It's been hard to keep the peace at the Vigil for a while now.

Hilda's decision to burn down Amaranthine was a difficult one. Difficult for her to make and difficult for others to understand. Alistair has spent a month defending her until he's red in the face, telling the soldiers and the volunteers at Vigil's Keep that she would've made another choice if she could, that she never wanted this to happen, that Maker's breath, she's a Fereldan, she was born and raised on the coast, if there was anything she could've done to save Amaranthine, she was the first person that would've tried to save it. If the glares he gets in the mess hall are a good indication, then he's not convincing anyone, but it's worth it to know that it makes Hilda feel better. It's the least he can do.

Tonight, though, the men in the Keep are drunk and their lips are loose. While Hilda, Alistair, and Nathaniel eat their dinner in silence, the soldiers have a loud conversation on the other side of the mess hall, completely unaware - or uncaring - that Hilda can hear their every word.

"Did she even try?"

"I dunno. A couple people who were there said she looked - she looked like she didn't care at all. 'So be it', she said. Then they rode off towards the Vigil."

"Maker's breath..."

"Why're we still here?"

"'Cuz we need the wardens to save us from the Darkspawn."

"The wardens couldn't even save Amaranthine!"

Hilda stares down at her plate, unblinking. Alistair's fist clenches around his fork. Nathaniel, sensing the tension, places a hand on Alistair's shoulder to soothe him. He's spent the last month defending Hilda's decision, too, but Alistair can tell he's growing tired of it.

"It's not worth it," Nathaniel mutters.

"We stopped the Blight not even a year ago," Alistair seethes. "How have they already forgotten?"

"Because they're choosing to forget." Nathaniel moves his hand to Alistair's wrist. "Just let it go."

And he tries. He really, really tries. He asks Hilda about her day, makes jokes about how Havard is doing in Denerim, and tells Nathaniel about the odd-looking cloud he saw that morning that was shaped like a duck, but if a duck was wearing a hat. But the soldiers on the other side of the room keep talking, their conversation growing louder and louder, and eventually, Alistair's had enough.

"Alistair -"

Nathaniel reaches for him too late. Without warning Alistair is across the room, grabbing one man - the loudest man - by the collar and throwing him up against the wall behind him.

"The woman you're talking about is the Hero of Ferelden," Alistair snarls. "The only reason you're still alive to complain is because she saved you - saved all of you - from the Blight."

"But she -"

Alistair raises his fork in the air as menacingly as he can. "If you say one more word about her -"

"Alistair -!"

The man he's holding pushes lamely at his arm. "Let me go!"

"Fine." Alistair drops his collar and steps back. "If you want to make up for what happened to Amaranthine, why don't you all go there to help the soldiers rebuild instead of sitting here, eating all of our food and complaining like a bunch of... like..." He sighs in frustration. "Just go, alright?!"

"Alright, alright!"

The man and his friends leave the mess hall, throwing glances over their shoulder and whispering amongst themselves. Alistair waits until the door swings shut behind them to turn around and give Hilda sheepish, apologetic look.

"We didn't need them anyway," he insists, stepping forward to take her in his arms and hug her close. "Things will be better without men like them around."

He's right - while rebuilding the Keep takes longer than it was supposed to, sending the dissidents and protesters to Amaranthine means the operations at the Vigil run a lot more smoother. And Hilda starts smiling a lot more than she has the past few months, which is all Alistair cares about. He'd burn down another city for that smile. Thank the Maker he doesn't have to.

-

prompts

[laurelsofhighever]

Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins Characters/pairings: Alistair x Cousland Chapter: 8/? Rating: T Warnings: None Fic Summary: The story of the Fifth Blight, in a world where Alistair was raised to royalty instead of joining the Grey Wardens.

read it on AO3!

--

Lightning crackled, and between its wicked, lashing tongues something stalked her. Whispers in her mind. An old woman with dirty hair and golden eyes leaned over her. Was this waking? No. A dragon – the woman was the dragon. Things clawed in the dark at her feet, the roots of vining laurels that twined around her body, cut into her skin. She snarled as she ripped at them with calloused hands but the growth was rotten, disintegrating in her fingers. One drove into her shoulder like a needle into cloth and still the rest grew, choking, twisting, closing over her mouth –

Rosslyn woke with a gasp of air. The jolt sent a blinding stab of pain through her shoulder that receded into a duller agony, and she fell back to the pallet with gritted teeth, eyes scrunched shut to bear it. After a moment, a cold, wet point shoved against her arm, a snuffling weight whining at her to move.

“Good dog…” she croaked, searching for Cuno’s bulk with her uninjured arm.

This time when she tried to move, a pair of thin hands pressed against her bare skin to guide her back down. They felt like her mother’s. For a moment of vertigo, she tried to work out why that thought clenched like fist around her heart, until the memory of flames and blood reared in her mind’s eye, with her mother’s shadow framed against the kitchen door as Duncan dragged her towards safety.

Grief did her no good. Her eyes opened on the wattle-and-daub walls of a small room, not a traditional Ferelden roundhouse but a square design that might have been Chasind, unadorned and thick with the scents of dung, smoke, and the bittersweet tang of the herbs hanging from the rafters. She had been stripped to bindings and breeches, but the surge of panic quieted at the sight of her armour piled neatly against the chimney breast on the opposite wall, with the Cousland sword propped over it as if standing to attention. The fire in the hearth sulked in its embers and licked its heat against her face.

“Where am I?”

“Safe, child,” answered a gravelly voice. “Or, safer than you were.”

Amusement rang in the sound of it. Following the gentle urging of the stranger’s touch, Rosslyn turned her head to find the old woman from her dream, gaunt and hollow-boned, with a thin slash of a mouth and eyes yellow and sharp as crab apples. The sight somehow bolstered her, and with feeling creeping back into her limbs memory came too, the grey dark of the tower and the smoke-obscured battlefield below, the gabble of the darkspawn, a flash of agony and then bronze, bronze eyes pleading with her not to go into the dark.

“Alistair –” She brought her hand to cover her brow. “What happened? Where is he?”

“Taking out his fretting on the woodpile, the last I saw,” the old woman replied with a huff.

He’s alive. She tried to sit up again, but the movement pulled at her shoulder.

“Do not be so eager to undo my good work, girl,” her attendant warned. “You are in the Wilds, and will not suffer for another moment of lying still.”

“The Wilds?” It would make sense if this was indeed a Chasind hut, but the vast territory couched at Ferelden’s feet was nigh-on unmapped.

“I plucked you and your companion from the tower.”

“It was swarming with darkspawn.”

The old woman waved an indifferent hand. “Unimportant.”

For a moment, Rosslyn considered. Loghain’s desertion, the king and the Grey Wardens, the awful feeling of the horde itching at the inside of her skull, all of it like a dream. The voices had receded now, silent like an emptied hall, but the revulsion still crawled in her stomach. And the dragon…

She glanced sideways to her rescuer as she stroked Cuno’s ears. The woman’s age fit her like a mask; there was no frailty in her movements, and a faint aura of power hung over her, like the vastness of the sky on a clear night. When she was little, her father had told her stories of witches who lived in the Wilds, had even said once that Maric had met one briefly after Queen Moira’s death, and it was written in the earliest pages of the Cousland Book that it had been Flemeth herself who had torn down the walls of Bann Connobar’s fortress and left Sarim Cousland standing in the ashes to prosper.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Names are pretty, but useless,” came the reply. “Besides, one of your blood should know me well enough.”

“You are Flemeth, then.” For a third time Rosslyn rose, curling up to save the strain of torn muscles, and this time she made it to sitting, though she had to hunch over and cradle her injured arm with a dizziness that left her short of breath. After a moment she managed to flex her fingers, but the movement felt weak – too weak to heft a shield. Still concerned, Cuno whined and dropped his head to her knee.

“The army lost the battle, didn’t it?”

Flemeth nodded, her voice heavy. “The darkspawn were too many, and the reinforcements did not come. Those that remain are scattered and retreating as best they can.”

The rage awakened by the news did not burn as she thought it would. Instead, it sank to the pit of her stomach like a glob of molten iron dropped into a pool, quenched into a hard ball by the cold.

“The king?”

“He died in the rearguard.”

She closed her eyes, her sigh deep and marrow-weary. Everything was wrong. She had to find Alistair, to talk to him. Now that the business of sitting up had been done away with, her ears caught the regular, dull thud-and-clatter of metal cleaving wood. Another wave of nausea threatened as she pushed to her feet, spots dancing before her eyes, but Cuno brought his broad head under her hand to steady her, and she managed not to fall. Flemeth pursed her lips but did not intervene.

A new, female voice, rich and sardonic, interrupted the rhythmic chopping of wood as Rosslyn hobbled closer. Alistair muttered something indistinguishable in response that made the woman laugh.

“And tell me,” she mocked airily, “when you are finished turning all our store into splinters, will you take the axe to the rest of the Wilds and give them the same treatment?”

“Am I supposed to just sit on my hands and wait?” he demanded. “I can’t just do nothing, not when…”

“You might prepare for your departure, or perhaps a bath? ’Tis my understanding that kings are supposed to take care with their personal hygiene.”

A pause. “I’m not the king. I wasn’t meant for the crown – I don’t want it.”

“The people of Ferelden will doubtless be grateful,” the woman replied as the sound of chopping resumed. “’Twould seem they already have enough to worry them.”

“Listen, you have no – Rosslyn!”

The axe slipped from his hands as she flinched into the brittle winter sunlight, the metal head a dull thump against the ground. With barely an instant to brace herself against the cold that raked against her feverish skin, she was swallowed up in his arms, the whisper of her name by her ear as he pressed his cheek against her hair, every muscle tensed as if he suffered a mortal wound. Somehow, he had managed to miss her injuries; his strength took the weight off her shivering limbs, so she did not pull away. Despite the icy air he had stripped down to a simple linen shirt that had soaked through with sweat, and the scent of smoke and iron clung to him, rank but real; the fabric twisted under her fingers as she buried deep into the crook of his shoulder.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he breathed.

Something fluttered behind her ribs, but she dismissed it. Blood loss. The concern of one as good as a brother. Behind him, the dark-haired woman who had been talking with him narrowed yellow eyes, her tanned arms crossed over a scrawny frame barely disguised by her layers of hide and crimson-dyed wool.

“I’m sorry about Cailan,” Rosslyn murmured, closing her eyes against the scrutiny.

A shudder ran through him, and he shook his head in lieu of anything he could voice. “It doesn’t seem real. We ought to be dead on top of that tower.”

“Do not wish for such things so easily, boy,” Flemeth scolded from the doorway.

“I didn’t mean…”

As Alistair pulled back to argue, he glanced down, his eyes widening in realisation at Rosslyn’s state of undress. His hands leapt from her bare skin as if shocked, colour climbing hot into his face. Flemeth had brought out a blanket, which he snatched with an apologetic grimace to drape around Rosslyn’s shoulders. More tired than amused, she wrapped it closer with her good arm.

“I told you not to worry so much, did I not?”

“I’m grateful, of course,” he stammered. “Very grateful. But why us? If Cailan had been saved – or the Warden-Commander – then –”

The witch cut him off with a wave of her hand. “I am sorry for your grief, but it must come later, in the dark shadows before you take vengeance, as my mother once said. You still have your duty, and it must come first.”

To Rosslyn, the subtle emphasis on the word felt pointed. A Cousland was bound by duty, she had always been taught so, but in making her a grey Warden Duncan had stripped her of her name – and in so doing, forced her into another sort of compact entirely. Alistair twitched at her side as if wanting to reach for her, but the action halted before it began, and instead he clenched the fist, steeled himself, and straightened. It hurt, but in the way of an old injury troubled by cold weather.

She forced a breath. “What happens now?”

“The battle at Ostagar has bought you time,” the witch replied. “But the full might of the horde has not been defeated. It has always been the duty of the Grey Wardens to unite the lands against the blights.” She arched a brow. “Or did that change when I wasn’t looking?”

“I am only one grey Warden,” she retorted. “Barely. We would need an army to defeat the horde.”

Flemeth levelled a steady look at her, as if she could see the kernel of defiance, the shadow clinging to the memory of her father on the pantry floor and her mother poised with arrow nocked in the doorway, which snaked into her ear like a breath of cold wind. The Wardens were dead; no one remained to keep her in the Grey, no one who could execute her for desertion. The weight of the Warden’s Oath hung around her neck, untouched. Rhodri had explained the custom of sealing the blood of the fallen into a locket, to carry the sacrifice of those unlucky enough to not survive the Joining, and when he had handed her the dainty silverite pendant it had taken almost more strength than she possessed not to fling the barbarous trinket into the fire.

Daveth would have tutted to see her thoughts now; it rankled that a common thief might think her dishonourable. But then the last sight of Ser Jory’s face swam into her vision, the way the light left his eyes as his wife’s name gasped through bloodied lips, and her mouth curled. The Grey Wardens had no honour in the first place.

“Arl Eamon won’t stand for it,” Alistair said. The conversation had gone on without her. “He wasn’t at Ostagar – he still has all his men. And he’s Cailan’s uncle, a respected voice in the Landsmeet.” Something desperate wriggled in his voice. “We should go to him, let him know what Loghain has done.”

“What creeps upon Ferelden now is a threat greater than any one man can pose,” Flemeth warned. “Your priority must be the darkspawn.”

“But how do we fight them? Redcliffe won’t be enough on its own, and Highever –” He swallowed, glanced sideways at Rosslyn.

“The treaties,” she realised, and turned to both of them. “The Warden who took me into the Wilds said that they once had treaties that can demand aid from the other races during a Blight, but we couldn’t find them.” A darker thought took root. “And who’s to say if Orzammar or the Dalish would even honour such oaths anyway.”

Flemeth snorted. “They will honour the treaties because they must, and because I will give you what you were searching for.”

“You took the treaties?”

“The seal wore off long ago, I protected what was contained within,” she replied, offended.

“Then we’ll take them,” Alistair declared. “And we’ll get our army.”

“Someone will need to lead it,” Rosslyn pointed out. Her voice was quiet, but he flinched from it nonetheless and shoved a hand through his sweat-darkened hair.

“If we get that far,” he said.

Rosslyn hunched further into the blanket but let the blot of cowardice go. Perhaps, once, it would have been her concern, but he had been lost to her the moment she drank from the cup, and though the knowledge left a bitter taste in her mouth, like medicine it offered strength as well.

“So you are set then?” Flemeth asked. “Ready to move against the Blight?”

Rosslyn glanced up to the sun, low on the northern horizon and not yet at midday. “What choice do we have?”

“There are always choices,” came the mocking reply.

Across the small yard, the young woman who had been talking with Alistair let out a scoff. “Only for some of us.”

“Do not complain, girl,” the old woman snapped. “You have been itching to get out of the Wilds for years, here is your chance.” She turned to Rosslyn and Alistair, dropping the edge of biting humour that had clung to her manner thus far. “It has already been decided. Consider it repayment for your lives – I’m giving you Morrigan, my daughter, that which I value above all in this world.” Another scoff from Morrigan went ignored. “Without her, you will surely fail, and you must succeed.”

“Then we should start as soon as we can.”

“Are you fit to travel yet?” Alistair asked. His hand flexed towards her elbow, but the gesture cut short before he could touch her.

“As long as weight is kept off the injury, yes,” Flemeth answered for her. “Morrigan knows spells to speed the healing.”

“She’s a mage too?” He frowned. “Outside of the Wilds that will make her an apostate – it could be a problem.”

The witch canted her head to the side. “If you did not want the aid of us illegal mages, perhaps I should have left you on top of that tower.”

“… Point taken.”

“You need not fear for my safety,” Morrigan interrupted. Unlike her mother’s dry mockery, hers rang with glee, a songbird instead of a crow. “I am more than capable of outwitting those brutes the Chantry keeps leashed to its service.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “that attitude isn’t going to draw any attention at all.”

Her lips thinned. “I suggest a village north of the Wilds as our first destination,” she said to Rosslyn. “’Tis not far and you will find much you need there. Or if you prefer,” she added, with a pointed look at Alistair, “I will simply be your silent guide.”

Years of lessons in court etiquette schooled Rosslyn’s expression into one of indifference, shrugging off the bite in her temper caused by the now-pulsing ache in her shoulder.

“A silent guide is no good to me,” she replied levelly. “And you’re right that we’ll need supplies.”

“Then I shall gather my things,” Morrigan replied with a condescending nod.

She slunk away behind the hovel and in watching her go Rosslyn failed to notice Flemeth’s exit as well, silent as mist. Alistair watched her.

“We need all the allies we can get,” she told him, before he could complain.

“No, it’s not… Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m difficult to kill.” The wry edge in her voice held too much bitterness to pass as a joke, but one corner of his mouth tilted up all the same. He inhaled, then let go the breath. A wren called from the thicket beyond the clearing, a sharp chit-chit like a pair of marbles clacking together.

“Eamon will know what to do,” he said. “He’s one of Cailan’s oldest advisors.”

“Not his anymore,” she replied, as gently as she could.

He flinched. “Don’t do that. When we were in the tower…” He shook his head. “It wasn’t me they were following. None of this is supposed to be happening.”

She thought of the whisper that had snaked deep through her flesh as the darkspawn blood burned down her throat, her vision doubled on an image of blackened, crooked scales and a maw of sword-sharp teeth dripping poison. The weak sun faltered behind a creeping bank of cloud and even wrapped in the thick wool of Flemeth’s blanket a shiver grasped at her bones. Her injury throbbed. She held her tongue.

[blarrghe]

Strange Feelings in the Party Camp

Ch. 7: Licking Lampposts

Rating: M | Category: M/M/F | Words: 21638 | Chapters: 7/?

Alistair is in love with Violet. Violet is sleeping with Zevran. Zevran is too good a friend to Alistair. Violet is too good a friend to Zevran. And can love even really be on the table, when you're all probably going to die?

Chapter Snippet:

He told Violet. He walked up to her in the camp the night before the dwarves let them into Orzammar and shut the doors behind them. He gave her the rose, said some words. He’d been practising them, but Maker knows what he actually managed to get out. It’s all sort of a blur now, but they must have been good words, because she followed them up with a rosy-cheeked gasp and by leaning up and into him with a kiss. A real kiss, full and flush against his lips, her chest squeezing into his, her arms pulling him down to her from a hold around his neck. It felt… he doesn’t even know what to call it. Fairy tale stuff, a deep pull on his heart and his soul and her foot popping out as she rose to her toes to keep holding onto him. He’d laughed, after. Brushed at the hair on the back of his neck, all standing up, and looked at her with stars in his eyes, he’s sure. 

[marduksstuff]

I REALLY LOVE ROMANCE WITH ALISTAIR

[it-holic]

commission done by @ sagan for my Grey Wardens

The Archdemon, the Broodmother. Darkspawns. These things form their life.

[sissy-the-siren]

Managed to snag two worldstate comms from @maturiin! I'm so in love with my precious beans being in love!!!! LOOK AT HOW HAPPY AND CAREFREE THEY ALL ARE!!!

[thedreadfulwolf]

Codex Entry: The Grey Queen

amazing art by @artist-rat

As the youngest child of the Teryn and Teryna of Highever, Elthea Cousland had an upbringing befitting any child of noble stature. While her tutors were impressed with her quick wit and grasp of diplomacy, the Hero of Fereldan also excelled with the sword and shield. Although the Teryna didn't want her daughter learning such things, the girl begged and pleaded with her older brother to teach her what he'd learnt in his lessons, and was insistent enough that the Teryn relented and allowed her to be tutored alongside Ser Gilmore. The two became quick friends and close confidants, a friendship that carried on into adulthood.

In 9:30 Dragon, Arl Rendorn Howe's men attacked Castle Cousland while the troops were marching to Ostagar with her older brother. With the rest of her family murdered, Elthea promised her father she'd flee with Warden Commander Duncan and ensure the Cousland name lived on. However, her new place of belonging was short lived, as the Grey Wardens and King Cailan were betrayed at Ostagar and all but wiped out.

In her efforts to gather allies to fight back the Blight, Elthea was known for her persuasiveness and compassion when dealing with others, always willing to give in return for their assistance despite the treaties compelling them to help anyway.

Despite her misgivings, Thea agreed to Morrigan's ritual in order to protect Fereldan's king if she and Riordan were to fall before reaching the Archdemon.

After the coronation of her beloved, Elthea's worries about their future were finally put to rest as King Alistair proposed, and they were wed six months later. Though there were some murmurings about two grey wardens on the throne of Fereldan, no one could deny how in love the couple appeared to be. They ruled together with fairness and thought for the people of their country until Queen Elthea disappeared in the night, leaving her husband to rule alone. Rumors amongst the palace servants say that wherever she is, the Queen still writes to her beloved frequently, and he is the only one who knows of her whereabouts and what took her away from the palace to begin with.

[bg3storage]

"I thought maybe I could say something. Tell you what a rare and wonderful thing you are to find amidst all this... darkness" - Dragon Age: Origins (2009) | "There's also something quite indomitable about you, Rook. It inspires." Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024)

[thelilyknight]

return to the old ball and chain

(ellanna & alistair, dragon age)

[blighted-elf]

Dragon Age: Origins - Alistair Romance 1/?

[bisexualmultifandommess]

Alistair during Awakening when the Warden is off on her quest:

The rest of his court:

[loustica-lucia]

Heroes of the Dragon Age

An animation I've made for Dragon Age Day 2023, featuring my main Warden (Alyssa Cousland-Theirin), Hawke (Eleena Amell Hawke) and Inquisitor (Sulevin Lavellan)!

It's to this day one of my best artwork and I thought I should share it here too! 90+ hours between the original sketch, outfit design, the rough animation, rotoscope, inking, flat-colours, background shading and even the audio :')

Interested in the process? I detailed it below since it was my first time doing something like that:

I would like to start by saying I'm not a professional animator!Everything you've seen here is the result of experimentation and a lot of practice to learn and understand how 2D animation works.

My first idea started in May 2023. I just finished rewatching DA Absolution for the X time, and wanted to analyse why I loved the intro so much. (Even after countless rewatch, I never skipped it once.) I was inspired to study it with my main three protagonists!

Then came the first test with Alyssa Cousland-Theirin, my Hero of Ferelden! I tried to understand which part to separate for the animation. Mainly the hair and cape because it flows a lot more than the rest! If I recall, my first idea here was to make her counter flame attacks (?). Then, as the camera turns around her, I tried to add a grid to know how the camera would work around it.

I ended up making the clip longer, so she could position herself to the further left and leave space to the two other protagonists.

Now it was time to try to animate Sulevin Lavellan, my Inquisitor. I really kept that quick doodling style just to capture the vibe without putting too much time/effort into it! The background would be static to contrast with Alyssa's. I also loved the idea of a rogue sneaking!

Instead of working on Eleena Amell Hawke, my Champion of Kirkwall, I went back to Alyssa and started working with Clip Studio Paint 3D models (this entire animation has been done on the EX version of the software!) It helped for rotoscope animation and maintaining likeness! That's when I got the idea to make the background swirl around the character to let the eyes be guided by the rest of the screen!

After a couple more hours, I planned the entire animatic with 3D models and quick doodles! I finally found a cool pose for Eleena Hawke, which was honestly the hardest of the three to imagine for some reason? I tried many other poses but ended up picking an animation from the game!

This whole time, I was studying a bunch of background ideas and how studio Red Dog Culture House (who made Absolution) work! Thankfully, they have a YouTube Channel where they shared some BTS content so I could analyse it!

Then, I simplified my character and their original designs in the style of the studio! These outfits are how I imagine them after Trespasser. Alyssa as the Queen of Ferelden, looking for a cure to the Calling, Hawke following Fenris to Tevinter & Sully as a Red Jenny Inquisitor!

The idea for Sulevin's animation actually came from a piece I doodled on a live stream, when I was drawing pose studies and turning them into finished artworks haha As for Alyssa, I wanted to draw the fight that got her facial scars!

Once their designs were ready and the background ideas too, I made the rough version of the animation! Basically a sketch done on top of the 3D models to add the details, staying pretty rough just to capture the idea and movements.

Then it was time to start the lines! I decided make a folder per frame, so I could separate all he main elements and draw them one by one. It helps keeping the likeness of a character in the different frames without having big "jumps" between frames! In fact, every parts were coloured differently to recognize them, and then I used vector erasers and masks (Ah yes, the entire lineart is done in vectors of course! It's easier to adjust and save time when working on similar frames!)

At first of course, everything overlaps! But I find it easier to draw too much and erase after, just to make sure everything is coherent in each frames! The cool thing about CSP is how you can change the colour of the layers in one click! So all the coloured lines turned into black in one second, and I could reverse it just as quickly to double check!

Then I started working on Sulevin! I made a blue line to mark where her feet were, as the sketch in the background wasn't perfectly straight! (Like Sulevin's sexuality 🤭😂) The silhouettes were very quick to do, but I had fun adding more & more details as she came closer to the foreground!

I really wanted to add that little dagger trick, but I remember it required me to change the pacing of Eleena's apparition, as it was recovering her arm too quickly! I had to change the pace of multiple frames quite a lot during the project, to make sure the flow was right! For Eleena, most of her animation remained around her arms and the staff itself, as magic would be the most difficult part! That way each character has their own focus: Alyssa has a very animated background, Sulevin got the grappling hook and Eleena the ice!

Then it was time to start adding colours! Just like for the lineart, I separated every colour on it's own layer, so I could easily adjust the colours later if needed. I added one colour at the time, going through all the frames, and then another colour!

I made full palette tests with the colours I would use for their background at this point, checking if the details remained readable! Alyssa was the most challenging in terms of clothes, because I made her a very detailled armour! I had to simplify the Theirin heraldry, vectorize/redraw the Cousland, and make a brush for her cape's pattern!

Once I was done adding the flatcolours, I started the background, and oh boy it was a wild ride. For the cave, I painted multiple tests. I imagine was to use CSP panorama tools, which transform a texture into a 3D sphere, so each corners must match to look good. Sadly, it made the background very blurry, so after hours of testing, I changed ideas. Instead of the random fire balls (?) I originally imagined for Alyssa, I made three simple frames of a Rage Demon to attack her.

I ended up using the cave as a repeated pattern to make it turn 360° around the character. For Eleena, I mixed inspiration from the comics, Dreadwolf & Absolution, using warm colours matching Hawke's signature red. Just like I made the cave very grey/blue to match Grey Wardens. For Val Royeaux, it was more complex because I wanted to make it green, matching the Inquisitor's signature green. But bright green couldn't work, and the original colour during day time was blue/white/gold. So I added more leaves, played around the design a bit! After adding the rage demon, I made the shading! It was surprisingly easy and quick to do now!

I clipped a white layer on the flatcolours to not be distracted by the colours, and made thin lines to separate the light/shadows, then simply filled everything with the bucket tool! Then you set the layer to multiply and remove the white layer, and you have celshading shadows! Now the character looks out of the picture, so I added layers of blue in color burn, saturation and substract blending modes to make her look like she's in the right setting! Of course, I did the same with the other two, giving Hawke a red overlay and Sulevin green shadows!

Then I added the details, it went from white irises, to sword/staff smears to earrings and smaller finition that goes on top of these layers. To add the lights, I simply selected the shadows and reversed the selection! Using warm and cold tones to create contrast with the purple/bluish shadows! I also added more ambient light layers for Alyssa to reflect the Rage Demon fire. Now it was time to add ice magic! My first attempt had too many frames, making it look weird! Sometimes it's better to lower the frame rate to make things less bumpy!

Then I downloaded some cool ice brushes on CSP assets that made it look less like blue magical flames! But when I covered the screen in ice, I realized "Oh wait, I could make a cool transition from the ice, to blue lyrium turning red?"Red Lyrium truly links these three games and The Veilguard somehow! I spent the next hour painting over the idol and putting it in a black background, with lyrium and then the golden Dragon Age title text.

For the SFX, I used free youtube libraries sounds & "Darkspawn!" comes from the violent human female voice set (iconic for ""Can I get you a ladder? So you can get off my back!"😂🤭) After editing all that, the animation was finally done!

Here's the final math:

About 15 hours for the sketching/rough/animatic phase, 30h for the lineart, 25h for colours, 10h for backgrounds, 5h for details & 5h for music & SFX, for a total of 90 hours. Aka the same amount of time it took me to finish Baldur's Gate 3 the first time lol

If you have any question regarding the animation or the softwares etc. do not hesitate to ask, I'll do my best to answer!

[nixmori]

Limited choice carry over and lack of tarot cards/reference to origins characters? That’s fine, I’ll make my own, with blackjack and—

Anyway, here’s a tarot card of my canon Origins world state with King Alistair and the Warden Queen while I drown in brain rot waiting for DAV

An aside, but I glazed/nightshaded this and I usually hate what it does to my paintings but I kind of like that it gave it this old almost cracked look, like an old painting.

[sinizade]

Queen Alathea Cousland

Commission for @vhenad4hl