#i'm really good about posting regular doodles and very quick sketches and stuff

[nguyenfinity]

And we keep being silly

[morgana-ren]

on this lonely day of valentines, scrolling through your blog to catch up on posts is great. i'm not sure if you answered a question like this before- but what would your four think about being drawn? one thing i do when i get to know someone is sketch them out, since i like how unique faces are. my sketchbook is full of doodles of my friends lol

It's actually a very big, very intimate thing for all of them. It's often done between them all when they're trying to give a legitimate gift to each other.

Reaver is a very talented artist. He doesn't always use it for the... best things (his sketchbook is filled with porn sketches and bdsm and all sorts of deranged shit) but he's also highly capable of doing remarkable work with pencils and charcoal (it's also the only time you'll see him intentionally dirty his hands.) You can tell he's started to fall for someone when sketches of them that aren't pornographic start appearing in his private sketchbook.

He has been known to draw the lads as a small token of affection. For birthdays or special occasions, he will really go all out for it. Golden frames, lamination, some incredible work, really. While he can sketch something very quickly that is extremely high quality, when he takes its time, it can be almost heartbreakingly beautiful. Some of the portraits that Astarion has of himself that he values the most were actually done by Reaver.

He can be insecure about it, while also being very arrogant at the same time. It's very strange. Probably because it's one of the few portals into his mind that he isn't very good at covering. He can have a smile on his face but depending on what he's drawing, it's a good way to tell what exactly he's feeling and about whom.

He also fucking loves having artwork of him done, but because he's so goddamn obnoxious about it, the others rarely indulge. Especially because he can never settle for a normal portrait. He always wants some heinous, debauched shit. (He very much does love the regular portraits of himself that they've done, but he has a reputation to maintain.)

Corvus is a remarkable painter. A lot of the paintings in Reaver's house were done by him, and most of the ones on his ship as well. It's not quite something you'd notice at a glance, but he has a specific style and once you notice it, you can't unsee it.

He doesn't tend to do portraits of people, and no one is quite sure why. No one wants to ask, either. However, he will when he feels strongly enough, whether it's for a friend or a lover or his family.

He tends to like to paint scenery, such as his ship, or the ocean, or certain views of places that he travels. He has an easel and paints he keeps on his ship for when the urge strikes him. You can tell how he feels about something based upon how he paints it if you know him well enough.

He will also paint the other lads, although not quite as frequently as they do. He's more likely to paint Reaver's manor, or Wraithmarsh, or some place that means something to them. He loves getting portraits of himself done, however. Back again to the 'beautiful and he knows it' bit. He isn't opposed of getting 'tasteful erotic art' of himself done, or even sketching it himself, and he gets more willing the drunker or more feral he is.

Astarion actually wasn't much of an artist when he initially joined up with Corvus, but he learned simply for something to do when there wasn't much to keep him busy on the ship. He tends to steal Reaver's supplies now, so he works mostly with pencil. He didn't quite take to it as naturally as the others did, but he's gotten quite good watching Reaver work, and he's actually quite talented.

It's not exactly his chosen way to express himself (it's hard when your brothers are absurdly talented when you're making stick figures at first), but it's great for a quick gag or a gift. He also likes to add small details to Reaver's sketches and see how long it takes him to notice. Sometimes he'll draw stuff and sign Reaver's name at the bottom, and he can tell he's getting better when Reaver can't tell immediately.

When he actually tries, he is capable of creating incredible works of art. He's done some great candids of Corvus, and even some of Reaver that were supposed to be goofy ended up being pretty remarkable.

That being said, portraits of him are actually one of the kindest gifts you can give him. It means the world to him, since he can't exactly see his reflection anymore, and as the years pass, he forgets more and more what his face looks like. His brothers have a way of painting and drawing him in a way that makes him feel loved and adored, and you might think he's vain because he has so many portraits of himself hanging around, but truth be told, it's more indicative of how much he loves seeing himself through his brother's eyes.

Ilya is big into art, but it's very hard to get him to be honest about just what exactly he can do. It was one of his escapes when he was very young, and he sees the world in an artistic way. Sometimes he just does something out of the blue that you had no idea he knew how to do.

He doesn't specialize like Reaver and Corvus do, but he's a jack of all trades. He can sketch and paint and tons of other mediums, but it's almost like he has trouble picking. He even owns an art tablet, but he finds it frustrating and cumbersome. He's the most likely to get frustrated with his own work and is the least likely to do it in front of anyone else unless he's very confident in that particular medium.

He's fine if people want to paint him portraits, but truthfully, he just enjoys anything he gets from his brothers. He saves all of it, even though he would never let anyone on to that. He has small scrapbooks full of Reaver's 'joke' drawings and Corvus's abandoned half paintings and even Astarion's little doodles. If he's going to do something for them, he's going to start months in advance and they won't get it until it's absolutely perfect.

At the end of the day, they all love getting sketches of themselves. They're all varying degrees of very, very vain. If their lover wants to do something like that for them? Oh, they'd adore it. All of them would actually love if they showed an interest in learning or asking them for lessons too. Literally hinting that you want to sketch them can have them all up in their feelings and feeling very arrogant, and you might even be able to use it as a distraction.

However, if you have a sketch pad, don't expect it to stay private. They're all looking through it when they think you're not going to notice.