Exile

This is Princess Juliara Reid, from the story I’m working on. This is one part of the story I’ve got alll figured out so it’s really exciting to explore character visuals for it. The first drawing is her without her disfigurement/ blue-green scars, when she’s Illusioned to look as she would without them. The second sketch is how she actually looks. The pattern of the nightshade covers part of her face and pigments both her eyeballs, so the sclera that should have been white is indigo in her case, and her light brown eyes stand out against it. The mark gives her a natural ability to penetrate all illusioning magic, an ability inherited by her niece, Vara (though she is affected by it to a lesser degree, and can only dispel illusions with one eye). Here she is sitting on the bamboo high chair among the Council of Islanders, where she has taken her place as a respected member of the Island Rekhali. The little ring/ clasp on her collar is the token given to her by her old tutor Kaghav, who sacrificed himself to save her from the other Shadows.

Back on the Continent, her younger brother Jeorgil, now the King of Cerys, has been piecing together the events of the past and the mystery of what happened to the sister he once banished as a figment of his imagination. But Jeorgil is one of the Nine, and answers to the old Emperor whose chimera and dragon breeding programs are still kept secret. Juliara is the only known dragon rider at the start of the story, and her existence is the Rekhali’s secret weapon. Long oppressed by humans since the Sinking of Sienna, the Rekhali are slowly forming alliances, sending envoys to the mountain and marsh and woodland tribes to settle old conflicts.

And here is just a doodle for a cheeky mechanic whose adventures and antics are a whole other collection of stories set in this fantasy world.