Ang's Exalted Sketchbook

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Exalted Art Challenge Concepts for Fave Charm

The concepts for Favorite Charm gave me a chance to explore the many glorious flame FX of the Celestial firepower of a Righteous Devil like Kalara. It also granted a bit of wish fulfillment since she never learned Garda Flies on Gilded Wing Attack.

These FX are just SCREAMING to be animated and are giving me more incentive to learn animation in Procreate! I'm saving the top right thumbnail of Cloud of Ebon Devils for a cover piece because it just has presence! Future cover of a sequel story to The Uncrucified, perhaps? Or at least some cool promo art!

[angelicshadow]

A two-fer today so I could catch my forum peeps up to my most recent posts!
Exalted Art Challenge Concept Sketches - Favorite Dragonblooded House

I chose House Cynis who feature in The Uncrucified in the form of gambling addict and bathhouse owner, Cynis Varia, and his wife, Sana, the daughter of an outcaste Wood Aspect who married into the family, since nobody else of status wanted to take on Varia's extreme debt and bad habits. The two are a strangely tender and terrible couple in a world of arranged marriages.

This sheet explores portraits of Varia and Sana as well as a house sigil emblazoned by a bonsai, since their associated element is Wood. Their house motto reads "Wood Nourished on Tears of the Fallen".





Exalted Art Challenge Concept Sketches - Favorite Spell

There was no contest in choosing a fave spell. How could I resist a spell that sends razor sharp obsidian butterflies flying out of the caster's hands? It's so goth extra and I love it! If a sorcerer chooses this spell as their specialty, they can also grow slashing claws of obsidian.

I made this character up on the fly as a sorcerer-assassin, of sorts. Instead of the more proper elegant mages, I imagine this nameless mage to be much more world-weary and cold. She would fit in well with the Guild assassins that Kalara will no doubt clash with later on in her story!

[angelicshadow]

Exalted Art Challenge Concept Sketches - Favorite Incarnae - Luna

I chose the Incarnae, Luna, goddess of the moon in Exalted for this topic. The Changing Maiden is all things, trickster, lover, prankster, and so much more. Her capricious nature appeals to my favorite trickster stories.

For her concept, I explored what a mural might look like in her temple, eventually favoring an asymmetrical version that felt more organic and freeform, which suited her themes better than the orderly symmetrical concepts. The masks represent her shapeshifting identities, with moon phases and rabbit companions worked into her motifs.

Keen-eyed fans might also pick up the inspiration I took from the Diamond murals in Steven Universe. Out of the topics so far, this is one of my favorites I want to bring to finish!

[The MG]

I'm a fan of your design for the Lover. It has a lot more style to it than the official one.

I made this character up on the fly as a sorcerer-assassin, of sorts. Instead of the more proper elegant mages, I imagine this nameless mage to be much more world-weary and cold. She would fit in well with the Guild assassins that Kalara will no doubt clash with later on in her story!

I like her.

[angelicshadow]

Exalted Art Challenge Concept Sketches - Favorite God - Plentimon of the Dice

Creation is full of offerings a-plenty for the Plentimon of the Dice! He is the God of Gambling and one of the most present and active gods in Creation. This god gets a thrill from watching games of chance unfold and the excitement of high stakes. He's always circulating Creation visiting every casino either in his full splendor or a mortal disguise. Those who gamble to him and lose without repaying their debts meet mysterious unexplained deaths.


The Plentimon shows up often in The Uncrucified, as Kalara's hometown of Gem hosts one of the most magnificent subterranean gambling parlors built with such finery as to please the gods themselves. Games of chance are part of the culture of Gem, with fortunes always turning in their many gambling dens. Kalara has experienced this firsthand as her contract was lost several times in a game of chance, usually during Plentimon's festival day.


I've chosen to depict the Plentimon with a half-mask representing Good and Bad fortune with jewelry and adornments made from various game pieces and jade obols. Perhaps they are the good luck charms from those who have lost to him?

[angelicshadow]

I'm a fan of your design for the Lover. It has a lot more style to it than the official one.

I like her.

Hey thanks! She was a particularly inspirational figure for me. I got a lot of cool mental images from her description before I ever saw her art and was very much looking forward to the Deathlord topic for this reason. Can't wait to draw more of her! I suspect she'll show up in my Exalted fiction too, at this rate.

[angelicshadow]

Exalted Art Challenge Concept Sketches - First Age Incarnation In each spark of Exaltation resides a Shard which is passed down from one worthy vessel to another. This gent here is Calym Lang, the Solar and Righteous Devil practitioner whose shard Kalara would eventually inherit.

Calym was a shrewd and paranoid master of trade whose cold pragmatism would be his downfall. Kalara is more like him than she would like to admit at times and the two maintain a begrudging respect towards one another. She often communicates with his greater soul in the underworld, the two poking fun at each other's flaws in a good-natured competition to see who will achieve their goals through more effective ends.

He's also ghostwritten a series of erotica novels that Kalara is a fan of, but will never tell him.

Calym's mural venerates his status as one who united the four corners of Creation, all trade routes leading to the compass in his hand. I imagine this to be the centerpiece of a wider mural, each region of the mural depicting the exports of the area they represent (an image our Storyteller described once that never left my mind).

[Hakushaku]

I love the peacock or phoenix or whatever that is above his head!

[angelicshadow]

I love the peacock or phoenix or whatever that is above his head!

Thank you! It's a silver phoenix and Kalara has a gold one just like it, which I'm sharing today!

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Exalted Art Challenge Concept Sketches - Age of Sorrows Incarnation - Kalara Vadras

When the Exalted of the First Age fell, the Age of Sorrows began, but a glimmer of hope stands on the horizon. The Shards of the Exalted have begun to appear again, imbuing heroes like Kalara with the power to change the face of Creation.

Like Calym, I've depicted her in a mural style with some key differences. While Calym's focuses on veneration from his worshippers, Kalara stands among people who rise up in revolution carrying tools of their trade, as she spends much of her power in Creation empowering escaped slaves like herself with trade skills and fostering fair economy through her organization, the Pristine Guild.

She struggles between the Gun and the Quill, violence and diplomacy. By the end of her time in Creation, she will have learned to balance both.

She and Calym share the phoenix as a personal symbol, though they oppose each other in gold and silver.




A side by side comparison of Kalara and Calym's temple murals showing their opposing silver and gold phoenixes.

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Exalted Art Challenge - Incarnations Back to Back - Kalara and Calym

Now that Calym's design is finally defined, this topic let me explore just how badass two Righteous Devils can be!

While Calym's time is over, he and Kalara remain inextricably bound. His Shard has also passed on some of his memories and knowledge. Kalara strives to learn from the mistakes Calym made and the emotionless spirit construct of himself he has left behind to tutor her in bureaucracy.

Should she ever prove unworthy, however, Calym has made his intentions known that he will destroy her so that a more worthy successor might come along more quickly, a threat Kalara never takes seriously.

The left thumbnail is another one I hope to bring to final! I'm loving their poses!


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If you want to help support me as an artist AND get a look at the sketches before everyone else, you can pitch into my Patreon and see the newest compilations there! (I've just posted a new one today that won't go public until next month.)

[angelicshadow]

Now we're getting into the fun spoopy topics of the Exalted Art Challenge I was looking forward to the most! Feels great to indulge my inner Goth Girl.

Abyssal - Golden Lies Spewn Forth From Avarice

In life, Golden Lies obsessed over material wealth and pursued it to his end. In death (or undeath), he cloaks himself in the finery of a king's funeral adorned with bejeweled bones and serves the Deathlords, the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears.

I played with a couple of different color schemes for him and am favoring the white-haired look at the moment! This isn't the last we'll see of this fellow, as he might appear in The Uncrucified down the line, if the story goes where I think it's going.

On the bottom-right, I also decided to draw fan art of another Abyssal who I liked the design of, the Saint of Promised Silence, who belongs to HamSamLich. Be sure not to be too loud in cemeteries around her!

[angelicshadow]

Exalted Art Challenge Concept Sketches - Deathlord - The Lover

For this topic, I couldn't resist choosing the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears. While other Deathlords challenge Creation with armies and violence, she works indirectly through manipulation, a clever, patient predator.

I wove the 'tears' of the Lover's name into her design, her dangling jewels mimicking falling streams of tears and the makeup on her face flowing like tear streaks punctuated by a drip of 'blood' from her lips. The tear shape even echoes in the cutout in her dress. For a seductress as high caliber as the Lover, I wanted a sense of high class, of ornamentation. She has bare shoulders to show a tantalizing bit of skin and smokes an opium pipe, which to me embodies her motif of 'luxurious destruction'.

She really seems to agree with the muse! I am definitely planning to choose one of her thumbnails to turn into a full painting.

[angelicshadow]

With this next sketch page, I'm officially done posting until the next batch of sketches come out Early Access! If you want to support an artist and see the sketches before everyone else, you can join my Patreon.

Exalted Art Challenge Concept Sketches - Monstrance - "Arms of the Lover"


As each monstrance suits the Deathlord's intentions (the way I interpret the lore), I've chosen to portray this monstrance controlled by the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears as being much like its owner. The silk satin pillowing inside makes it seem like a luxurious bed, the soulsteel and jade construct gilded with gold.

A prismatic crystalline lid allows one to gaze on the poor soul inside, whose body is trapped in an arc that mimics ecstasy by gold caressing arms that come alive and clasp the victim within. Inserted along the crystal lid, jewel encrusted needles stab into each of the victim's chakra points, plying the Solar within for corruption. Like the Lover, this monstrance combines a beautiful and terrible aesthetic.

Here's a cropped SFW preview:


And a spoiler-tagged full view that I'm hiding for suggestive themes, non-graphic body horror, and undetailed artistic nudity:

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The 6th Exalted Art Challenge collection arrives a month early just for my Patrons! Featuring weapons, artifacts, warstriders, and magical materials. Check out the article for my creative notes, lore, and more unpublished art.

PLUS, Patrons can help me name Kalara's warstrider!

Once you join my Patreon, you can read the article here.

[angelicshadow]

Exalted Art Challenge - Reaction When You Don't Take Sail
I leaked this a little early on Discord, so gonna go ahead and share here too!
This one was inspired by the funny stories I heard when I first started playing Exalted. There was always 'that time we were trapped on a deserted island and nobody had thought to take Sail'. But in our Circle's case, at least my Eclipse, Kalara, had taken it.
Having a point in Sail means your pirate hat is automatically bigger than everyone else's. It is known! Though, in reality, Kalara only had two points in it, so she knew enough to maybe not die during a storm at sea.
(I think Imma have to draw my gal, Kalara, there in that hat outfit sometime. It's a fun hat!)