An idea I had for a trio of paintings a long time ago and only just finished now. (click for larger)

Akuliina Volkova, Emperor’s Wrath

Murlesson Kallig, Darth Nox

Aristheron Laskaris, Darth Tharros

Akuliina I painted in March 2020, and the two boys I painted this March. I wanted to post them as a set, so I waited on Akuliina until now. Though now I’m kind of disappointed in her picture, I remembered it as being better than it was.

The concept was “Sith with symbolic animal companions”, as a triptych, or maybe a Sithtych, if you will, and so Akuliina has a golden eagle (not sure anymore if it is the eagle species called the Golden Eagle or if it’s just an eagle that is gold), Murlesson has a scarlet serpent, and Aristheron has a black wolf. I’m not here to draw animals in general so plz don’t judge them for being bad. I also designed Murlesson’s robes to my own original design, because most of the in-game robes in SWTOR are much too flamboyant and ostentatious for me. I want this lanky gremlin to not look too important, he’s the sort to eschew ostentation and blend in when he can (Dark Council who?). His lightsaber is also an original design because I can’t afford any of the sexy lightsaber hilts in-game, and this is how I imagined his saber from the fic would look. Aristheron’s armour is from the game, but I gave it custom colours because his main colours are black and gold.

This seems also a good place to talk about the other symbols of my three resident nutcases. Akuliina’s core emotion is fury, and her element is fire. Murlesson’s core emotion is hatred, and his element is lightning (with a side of venom). Aristheron’s core emotion is pride/honour, and his element is earth. You can also classify them as Aristheron is the tank, Akuliina is the melee DPS, and Murlesson is the magic DPS. Aristheron and Akuliina are pro-Empire, Murlesson is not, but Murlesson and Akuliina are Dark Side and Aristheron is Light Side.

Thank you to Tharash (who created Aristheron) who insisted that Aristheron’s pose be something HEMA-accurate, to the point of taking reference photos for me. Akuliina’s pose I think was probably referenced from a picture I found on the internet, and I took Murlesson’s reference photo myself.

Btw Murlesson has a new song; I’m building the playlist for the next volume of his story. And the outline of said story. Soon I might actually play the damn game again to research what actually happens in between my original plot points.

Been wondering a bit why I specifically like Sith so much that I have three of them, and I think it’s a bunch of things. I mean, normally I adore heroes like Luke, I love the idea of Jedi being idealistic noble knights errant, but… I think part of it is being fascinated by trying to make cartoon villains into three-dimensional understandable characters. SWTOR helped by giving the Imperial characters a charisma that most of the Republic characters kind of lack to one degree or another (except for Smuggler, who could call Smuggler lacking in charisma?) Akuliina’s my power fantasy, of a woman who is so supremely confident the world bows before her and who exults in her strength; Aristheron appeals because he’s a Dark Knight bound by a code of honour but still has an edge that a Jedi lacks; and unfortunately Murlesson is just me being weak for ‘toxic sad boys’ who have a terrible life and have enough conscience to look fixable. And for the game’s sassy Scottish VA.

I really hate the daylight savings time change.