kosalus

[kosalus]

did the bicep meme with shadowlach

#night bump

[kosalus]

did the bicep meme with shadowlach

#i am once again making everything about them #did this in between commissions #the speed that i did this at is concerning #it was a nice excuse to try out some new brushes tho and i love them #shadowheart #karlach #shadowlach #karheart #shadowheart x karlach #baldur's gate 3 fanart #bg3 #bg3 fanart #baldurs gate 3 #my art #commissions open #dungeons and dragons art #dnd #dnd art #larian studios

[kosalus]

I think I've found the most tragic ship in BG3 and I need to rant about it

I've seen a decent number of people discuss and write about Dark Justiciar Shadowheart, but they always focus on what she's like post-game when she's fully committed to Shar. Which is a fine thing to focus on! Especially when you're writing smut where she's a mean domme. Post-game DJ Shadowheart is a fascinating character. But I feel like people neglect to consider what she's like during the transition phase of Act 3, where she's become Shar's Chosen but hasn't yet Done The Thing that caps off her personal questline. And there is SO MUCH potential for angst and drama during that time frame.

IMO the most important aspect of this stage of her development is that she is not evil yet. She simply made a single bad decision and now she feels like she's in too deep to do anything but double down on it. She's spent her whole life trying to "fake it 'till you make it" and she's only just now starting to transition out of that and into sincere belief. All the misgivings and insecurities she's shared with you are still there, just buried deeper. That desire to love others and do good hasn't yet been completely stamped out. In my Dark Justiciar Origin run, I try to do good things whenever possible as long as I can find a way to rationalize it as benefiting Shar. (but I still ended up saying enough evil-sounding things to make Minthara incredibly horny for me)

So where does Karlach fit in?

Well, turns out when you play as Origin Shadowheart, Shar doesn't make you break up with your partner. In fact, Shar says absolutely nothing to you about your romantic situation. This is really weird if you're romancing anyone other than Karlach, but I think it makes perfect sense for Shar to tolerate a relationship with Karlach for the time being. It's the ideal opportunity for Shar to prove a point. Karlach is dying, and no matter what Shadowheart does, this relationship is going to end in painful loss. Shar wants Shadowheart to fall in love with Karlach only to have that love abruptly ripped away from her. It perfectly demonstrates everything Shar believes about love: that it's fleeting and will always hurt you in the long run. Better to just avoid it entirely so you don't get hurt.

And Shadowheart knows all this. She's studied Sharran scripture extensively, after all. She knows that Shar is trying to teach her a lesson, she knows that the longer the relationship lasts and the more emotionally intimate it gets, the more the end is going to hurt. So why doesn't she break it off? Partly it's because she loves Karlach and doesn't want to end things; she's probably in denial at least a little bit. But I think it's also partly because she's a bit of a masochist. She thinks she deserves to suffer because she knows, at least subconsciously, that she's still not a very good Sharran. She can see the loss coming and she hopes the experience will bring her closer to Shar.

You'd think Karlach would be unwilling to put up with DJ Shadowheart's fanatical bullshit, but personally I think Karlach would stick it out for a whole mess of reasons. Number one, she can still see the good in Shadowheart and she refuses to give up on her partner. She's clinging tightly to the hope that Shadowheart can still be redeemed, even though she probably understands that it's a long shot at best.

Number two, she blames herself. When you play as Tav/Durge or another Origin, Shadowheart will have a conversation with you before deciding what to do in the Shadowfell. But if you play as Shadowheart, none of your companions says a word to you. In the context of this ship, I choose to interpret that as Karlach being too trusting. She's seen the good in Shadowheart, after all. She's so certain Shadowheart will do the right thing that she doesn't think she needs to speak up. It's not until too late that she realizes what Shadowheart needed was for someone to say "hey, are you sure about this?" So now she feels she needs to make up for that failure somehow by continuing to try and nudge Shadowheart in the right direction even though it seems impossible.

And number three, Karlach's just plain lonely. As fucked-up as this relationship is, she's still getting companionship and intimacy, and she doesn't think she has time to cultivate a new relationship if she breaks up with Shadowheart. She wants someone to be with her and hold her hand at the end, even if that someone is a brainwashed cultist.

In sum, both of them know that their relationship is extremely unhealthy; that it's hurting them now and will hurt them more in the future. But they both refuse to end it for their own reasons. And good gods, the ANGST. ARE YOU FEELING IT NOW, MISTER KRABS?

#ough #ive been thinking about dark justiciar shadowheart x karlach a lot lately so ty for this #baldur's gate 3 #shadowheart #karlach #shadowlach #dark justiciar shadowheart

[kosalus]

🎶 Oh, what a night 🎶

#shadowheart #baldurs gate 3 #bg3

[kosalus]

my favorite dungeon meshi yuri ❤️🤗

EDIT: I'M SORRY HOW COULD I FORGET TO DRAW THIS SILLY LITTLE EXTRA I THOUGHT OF

#dungeon meshi #kikimari #kiki floke #namari

[kosalus]

April 13th babyyy

[kosalus]

#nobamaki #kugisaki nobara #zenin maki #my girls <3

[kosalus]

I wish lesbians were as easy to find in real life as they are on tumblr

[kosalus]

Kinda on the rope about this one but, hey.

#legend of korra #korrasami #korra #asami sato #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[kosalus]

“Shush”💜🖤 a silly little redraw to combat the last half of the episode

#critical role #cr3 #imodna #imogen temult #laudna

[kosalus]

thinking about that sheet of elf drawings by ryoko kui and it's a Bunch of women looking amazing as hell and then there's like astarion really small in one corner and he looks like he was traced from the box art

[kosalus]

There is something horribly tragic about a Shadowheart on the dark justiciar path with a Karlach who dies in the end (or honestly, just any of Karlach's endings; no matter which one, she can't stay as they are, and their time is finite).

Like to Shadowheart it just makes sense she would fall for someone she's supposed to lose. Karlach was such a gift. Loss is supposed to be a gift. She has to double down and keep believing that because looking it in the eye would wreck her 😔😭

#oughhh #im fine this is fine #if you hear sobbing in the distance it’s probably me #shadowlach #shadowheart #karlach #bg3

[kosalus]

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

[kosalus]

she said, "you can ruin me"

[kosalus]

[kosalus]

making crappy character sheets for my maybe comic, here is one

[kosalus]

i genuinely hope that boop day inspires everyone to interact more with other tumblr users. because it’s clearly way more fun this way!! even once the boop button is gone, there’s still asks, tag and ask games, comments, dms, fuck it let’s bring back blog rates i don’t care. part of the reason that tumblr is dying is that its way less social than it used to be. let’s fix that!!