I rarely do fanart but for a long time I wanted to get better at painting characters, so why not a piece of one of my favourite characters of all time; Knight Solaire from Dark Souls.

Here's somewhat of a process. First up, I needed a reference for a basic combat stance:

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Next up was a general sketch of what Solaire looked like and what I wanted him to do.

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Lot's of detailing followed, sticking to some in-game references.

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Decided to change his pose back to the original reference. Ditched the lightning spear too, and switched it for a sword. At this point I was pretty happy with the result.

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Afterwards I changed the setting from the Undead Burg bridge to the Kiln of the First Flame. It just felt more dark and fitting.

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Finetuning the lighting and background. Eventually I added a bit of a warm filter/bright light to make him more praise the sun-ish and add some dynamic to it. This was a tough one for me and I still don't know which version I prefer. The one without filter feels closer to the area in the actual game, but the one with the extra lighting just adds a bit of liveliness I guess.

Solaire_NoFilter_800.jpg Solaire_1500.jpg

Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think. Feedback is very welcome!