character design - nocturne & sonatine

current listen - depeche mode | memento mori (2023)

I’m a very visual person, and I create by watching a scene in my head. This is pretty hard to do if I don’t know what the characters look like, so I need to have a clear idea of who and what is at my disposal.

This means I need to create character art for main characters in my in-progress erotic horror fantasy novel. Now, this isn’t meant to be a story about fashion: it is not my intent to meticulously describe every detail. Rather I want to create something evocative that will guide my descriptions and let the reader imagine things on their own.

context

The lead of the story is named Sonatine. She is based on my current D&D character, Nocturne.

The campaign is Curse of Strahd, basically fantasy Dracula if you aren’t familiar. Nocturne is a warlock with Strahd as her patron since this is my second time playing around, and I wanted to lean into the fact that I already know the major plot points of the campaign. In short, she was raised within Castle Ravenloft from basically birth and is sent to double cross some adventurers (but then ends up double crossing Strahd in the end). It’s made for a really interesting dynamic!

heads

We’ll start with some heads. Everybody loves heads.

These are the same exact facial features with different hair and colorings. Nocturne is on top, Sonatine is below.

I wanted something aloof, doe-eyed, a visual contrast to how annoying she is. You’re lured in by her appearance and then boom, there’s evil afoot. Nocturne’s coloring is very straightforward, very standard Drow stuff. I had more fun with Sonatine, I really liked the idea of a basically monochrome character. And the idea of elves with black sclera is just so cool to me.

The curls sort of just. Happened. They’re so much more fun to draw than straight hair, and there’s the stereotypical sensuality about a mass of curly hair.

nocturne

I wanted Nocturne to be waifish, very classic sword-and-sorcery slash renaissance faire style fantasy. Her chemise is sheer just because I thought that’d be more interesting than red canvas or whatever.

The color palette is very traditional there-are-vampires-in-this-setting. Pretty sure anyone in Barovia caught wearing a non-red-black-white ensemble would be executed on sight.

The thigh-high socks are a new addition, gartered by rope, same as the chemise sleeves. Rope is a recurring theme in her and Sona’s designs.

That red pearl at her neck is her spell focus, granted to her by Strahd himself. Her eldritch blast is bats, and in her hand is the sun sword featured in the campaign – which she officially just started wielding :)

sonatine

Nocturne was raised in squalor because Castle Ravenloft is a wreck, Strahd cares much more about his pursuit of Ireena than any kind of maintenance.

Casimir Lacramiscu, on the other hand… he’s vain. Appearances are everything to him. The residents of his keep are possessions as much as his throne. So Sonatine is well-dressed.

The easiest thing to do would have been to, of course, not change the design at all. But that didn’t sit right with me. I had given myself a particular set of design constraints with Nocturne - classic Drow, goth palette, grew up in squalor - that I didn’t need to keep. The two were identical at the outset, but they’ve gradually diverged.

I have been leaning heavily into baroque and rococo as inspirations for Lacramovan design, and that inspiration is apparent here. I wanted ridiculous baroque lingerie, basically. An earlier draft of this design had the bloomers going down to her knees, but I liked the shape of shorter bloomers, and that the bows would draw the eye to the thigh.

The pale blue is again rejecting stereotypical red, and also a nod to rococo palettes. Twee evil. Tweevil, if you will.

The leather harness is a dash of bondage, and the metal filigree roses are a nod to the Lacramovan seal of lion and rose, roses being the primary cash crop. The ribbons are meant to look like butterflies - another reason why I chose blue.

There are more rope details at the bodice - note the tiny tassels - and the lace frill at the wrists and feet are intentionally foppish. There’s also a few hearts in there.

Lastly, you’ll note the change in eye color. This was a last minute decision - I’m always swapping eye colors to figure out what feels right.