Merry Calibration to my Exalted Secret Santa giftee, @grimmjowjaegerjaquez! Here’s my take on Leno-Myraavi Khalil, a particularly anxious and polite Twilight Caste. Cecil mentioned making a comic of this character some day and I hope he will! Khalil intrigues me. I want to know more about his back tattoo and how he got it. A mark of his sorcerous initiation, perhaps?
I took cues from his iconic anima aura which is described as ‘eyes that look everywhere and nowhere arrayed like a peacock’s tail’. This was the perfect opportunity to test out Procreate’s Soft Pastel and inks for a Tarot-inspired style.
Thanks for organizing us @shiftingpath! It’s always fun to see what awesome art comes out each year.
DECEMBER SUCKED! With that out of the way, I finally finished @angelasasserart ‘s late Calibration gift! Or maybe it’s @theuncrucified …
Anyway, I chose to do Kalara’s Persona, Koh, because I’ve previously drawn Kalara herself, and making the guy version of her sounded fun!
Then I got ambitious with the pose. Then retail hell happened. Then I got sick over Christmas and New Years. Anyway, that means I scrambled on this, and the shading is super rushed. Anyway, Ang, thanks for having such neat characters to draw!
@shiftingpath
What a glorious thing to wake up to! Such a cool pose.
Merry Calibration to my Exalted Secret Santa giftee, @grimmjowjaegerjaquez! Here’s my take on Leno-Myraavi Khalil, a particularly anxious and polite Twilight Caste. Cecil mentioned making a comic of this character some day and I hope he will! Khalil intrigues me. I want to know more about his back tattoo and how he got it. A mark of his sorcerous initiation, perhaps?
I took cues from his iconic anima aura which is described as ‘eyes that look everywhere and nowhere arrayed like a peacock’s tail’. This was the perfect opportunity to test out Procreate’s Soft Pastel and inks for a Tarot-inspired style.
Thanks for organizing us @shiftingpath! It’s always fun to see what awesome art comes out each year.
Proud of how this one came out! I might have to try some characters from The Uncrucified in this style, sometime.
It’s that magical time of year again for the Exalted Secret Santa! It’s also time for a new reference collection now that I have some new art to share this year. My Secret Santa has 3 options behind the cut. Choose your poison!
Kalara Vadras, The Uncrucified
A passionate Eclipse Caste, Kalara can often be found traveling Creation using her charm and wit towards the cause of achieving a more equitable economy and the abolishment of slave labor throughout the threshold. While she has a friendly public face, her enemies whisper of her spy network, Kalara’s “Tongues”, which work quietly throughout Creation eliminating her enemies.
She has a scar from a failed crucifixion on her left hand only,not both hands
Feel free to play with her hair and clothing style without sticking too close to the ref. Kalara mixes things up a lot to either blend in on her travels OR to make a big impression, depending on the occasion. She’s quite the fashionista!
Her totemic anima involves chains of sunlight wrapping around her arms and ankles as the links fall off one by one. Spikes of sunlight, which do not harm her, appear in her hands and melt away. Behind her, a phoenix with a long, trailing tail rises up behind her
NSFW ok!
When she can’t talk her way out of combat, Kalara uses a set of ‘plainer’ artifact firewands (pictured on the right below), though she prefers to leave the gunslinging to her alter-ego, Koh.
————
Koh, the Silver-Tongued Devil
Sometimes when Kalara requires more “discretion” on the road, she travels in the guise of her male persona, Koh, the Silver-Tongued Devil. Rumors swirl around about how this infamous gunslinger and Righteous Devil led a rebellion and rules a network of rebels, escaped slaves, and bandits in the forests between Nexus and Dinas Ryhdd.
Much to Kalara’s amusement, there’s even a rumor that the two are lovers after her Night Caste companion shapeshifted into Koh so they could pose together at a party to throw off suspicion.
Art Notes
Koh appears male with dyed brown hair, though the disguise in my ref image is slipping a bit with Kalara’s red roots showing and her shirt open.
The round-rimmed glasses are Koh’s signature, feel free to take liberties with everything else, though Koh’s appearance tends to channel Kalara’s Southern heritage
Koh uses a set of dual Prayer Pieces
NSFW ok
—-
Night Locust, the Kindly Reaper
Kalara’s right-hand ninja, head of security, and leader of her black ops, “The Embers”. The two formed a strong familial bond as fledgling Solars, as the young Solar took his second breath at the age of 19 when he refused to murder his assassin partner, instead taking the life of their assassin clan’s leader in a blaze of sunlit fury. Night Locust met Kalara in the wandering time after, Kalara giving him a purpose and compassion he did not have in life.
Night Locust may project an aura of calm sagely wisdom, but he is a prankster at heart and a keen edge on the battlefield. He uses a pair of short diaklaves and a dual-bladed scythe. He is not a fan of pointless murder, however, and also does his best to avoid violence.
Art Notes
Kalara and Night Locust are not lovers, but rather have a found-family relationship. Please do not draw them in a romantic situation.
Night’s totemic anima is a cloud of blackness that breaks off into countless locusts
Exalted Secret Santa 2020 for @theuncrucified of their gorgeous Kalara! I hope I got all the details in <3
OHHH! Look what was posted while I was sleeping! She’s absolutely stunning @fishcapades. Thank you for this lovely gift! This color scheme is gorgeous for her!
I’m sliding in at the very last minute, but Merry Calibration, @sly-works! I hope I’ve done Jae justice. He’s an unassuming guy who is up to nothing particularly suspicious AT ALL. You can learn more about him here.
He’d fit right well in with my boy ,Laughing Fox, who is also fond of aliases and being up to nothing troublesome in particular. >:D
Merry Calibration, Exalted friends! I participated in the Exalted Secret Santa hosted by @shiftingpath (thanks for organizing us all, Path!).
My chosen recipient @akaittou had a lot of interesting characters, but this lady caught my eye! She is a Linowan noble and Eclipse Caste named The Wind Which Sways the Cattails Growing in the Last Meander Before the Rapids Flowing Past Two Flowers in Bloom and her mink companion. I couldn’t resist drawing my favorite Caste!
Here are a few characters to tease your muses for this year’s trade! Three options behind the cut.
Kalara Vadras, The Uncrucified
Eclipse Caste, Southern, Righteous Devil.
Kalara Vadras waits for no man, woman, or god. She gets results! This savvy businesswoman can frequently be found at one fabulous luncheon or another wining and dining trade gods or drinking hard amongst the artisans and crafters to seek out new talent. She often travels in disguise to avoid the high profile nature of both her controversial criminal past and her newfound status as the founder and leader of the Pristine Guild. This new mercantile organization has pushed the Guild from the East with corporate warfare and, as some rumor, with untraceable assassinations and political machinations.
Despite her public image as a businesswoman, Kalara is one of the few surviving practitioners of the gunslinging martial art of the Righteous Devils. However, she prefers to leave this gunslinging reputation to her infamous alias, Koh the Silver-Tongued Devil, a male disguise she created in her younger years to throw her Guild enemies off her trail. In recent times, however, she’s beginning to care less about hiding from her enemies, preferring to face them head on as her organization, power, and allies grow.
(See Kalara’s full profile for reference pics, full bio, etc.)
ART IDEAS: Feel free to dress her to impress or throw her into the action! There’s no need to stick to the outfit in her reference image, either. I encourage you to have fun and be creative with her wardrobe if you want! NSFW topics are ok! (When in doubt, message me).
Khazan, The Starless Dragon
Fire Aspect, Southern, Bandit King.
They say never to journey on the western road outside of Nexus, for the Starless Dragon waits in the woods to relieve hapless caravan leaders of their goods and lives. His bellowing laughter can be heard across a field, with his deadeye aim with a rifle reaching even further, Khazan known to be able to make shots no mere mortal could make with firedust weapons.
While his enemies see him as a brutish, uneducated bandit leader, his allies know him as so much more. His years as a long-lived Fire Aspect have granted him education on the field of countless battles. He has seen leaders rise and fall throughout the generations, his exuberant personality and good humor having gained him many friends in that span.
Khazan wears his fearsome nicknames proudly, ignoring the unlucky stars he was born under and swearing to make his own Fate with his own hands. His passion and loyalty inspire unbending faith in the men that follow him, despite the fact recent years have turned his once-proud band of soldiers into mere bandit pawns of the Guild. He mentors Kalara Vadras during the early days after her Exaltation in hopes that he can use her power as a weapon against his enemies.
(See Khazan’s full profile for inspiration pics, full bio, etc.)
ART IDEAS: I’ve never created art of Khazan, so that means he’s open to interpretation. Have fun with him! As long as he has an epic beard, an epic smoking pipe, a rifle+firewands, and is as over the top as you can make him with his arabesque tribal style, you’ve done him justice! NSFW topics are ok! (When in doubt, message me).
Laughing Fox
Night Caste, Mysterious Artist, Suspicious Doctor.
Whether he’s playing the prostitute on your arm or the old guardsman passing by on the street, the man known as Laughing Fox takes pride in the lies he weaves. Those who know his true past are either dead or unaware that they know. He prides himself in his mystique hidden always by an ever-present smile and his usual kindly doctor alias.
Though fully versed in how to end lives, he prefers the softer side of his skillset, taking more pleasure in seduction to get the information he’s often hired to retrieve. Laughing Fox doesn’t always work for money and prefers instead to live by his own delights, whether it be following up on a rumor about an interesting artifact or spending a Marsday seeing what dirty secrets the local warlord has locked away in his castle. Thrills and fun motivate him more than glory or fame, though he takes secret delight in the rumors that circulate around his aliases and watching others try to get at the truth of it all.
Laughing Fox is also a self-taught artist prone to asking people for spontaneous portraits, searching always for a way to reveal the truth behind things. His art style is usually abstract and unappealing to most onlookers, however, much to his chagrin. People just don’t understand his genius yet!
ART IDEAS: I’ve also never done art of Laughing Fox, so he is also very open to interpretation, especially with his knack for disguises and aliases. He’s a smiling trickster with a past as a courtier who is definitely proud of his good looks. NSFW topics are certainly ok for him. (When in doubt, message me).
Can’t wait to see what my future Secret Santa does with my brainchildren! ♥
Re-blogging this to make it easier for my Exalted Secret Santa to find! Can’t wait to see who is chosen for this year. :D
I ran out of time a little this year as I’m being dragged away to the middle of spotty-internet-connection tomorrow but I present Rex mid-ride(flight?).
A beanpole of a man, very tall, very thin, with very red hair. His style, like his life, is a mess.He is a fire aspected dragonblood mortal travelling tea merchant, who grew up in the Grass Spiders Scavenger Lands and travels with a donkey drawn cart filled with tea and poison. He appears quite harmless and road worn, his weapons are very scary artifact swords absent and his martial arts are white veil non-existent. He enjoys smoking his pipe and drinking tea.
He sometimes emulates the heroic and fiery panache of a fire aspect but his true nature is much more like smoke, his anima suffocates and his presence sinks into your surroundings and lingers long after he’s gone.
Recently, he’s gone out of the tea business after an evening of heroic deeds was misconstrued by a circle member who proceeded to shatter his left arm and he fled town with a new donkey drawn cart that houses a corpse-eating ghost.
(Most of my art ref for him is modern-au, sorry XP: new link,4 by theuncrucified last year)
((I did a silly write up of two of his fake identities in last year’s journal, here))
Hotaru
My first Exalted character ever. Hotaru was a child (12~14), who left home with her father after he was cast out as a Solar anathema. She was a night caste herself.
Her hair was blueish black and her eyes were golden like a cat, her body had been mutated by the wyld and huge bony wings extend from her back and seemed to be held together with spiders silk. She wielded a soulsteel scythe and fighting chains the latter of which she wrapped around her waist making her jingle when she walked. She didn’t like wearing shoes.
Her anima was a large shadowy spider.
She was raised on the run by a father who soon died and a Solar circle who didn’t have much experience with children. Her three views were not quite correct but she tried her best to be helpful and survive. She failed in the end. She died after one of her wings was torn off and she fell off the side of a volcano, scattering into dust.
The Disney princess of magma kraken wielding sorcerers, unsurprisingly not at all stable for a young woman with the last four personalities of her Solar Exalted soul living in her head.
She’s young, peppy, and optimistic, with long platinum pink hair and bright eyes. Nature thrives where she walks and sparks of embers bloom around her. She fashions herself after the highest palace fashion from the Blessed Isles, just with a bit more colour and 300% more bows and frills.
She has a soulsteel tome that carries the souls of hundreds of passed sorcerers and also carries a sword inherited from her First Age incarnation which she never uses. Typically in combat, she will forgo violence and instead allow a snowy, reindeer-headed air dragon, Aurora (and maybe a kraken or two) take care of her.
She is occasionally possessed by her past incarnations, most often by the bitter and jaded Solar warlord, Jackal, who naturally knows how to use his own damn sword and is hellbent on returning the status quo of the Solar glory days, when he and his friends could commit war crimes without a care. (Jackal is a First Age Solar warlord with kind of an Anubis rip-off theme, I have never drawn him and don’t really have a clear image of him in my head because he just manifests as nega-Toffee in game, but if you’d like to give it a try I’d love to see it. His favourite weapons are mind-control and fear, just an all-round swell guy :) #thesolarsdidnothingwrong)
(I don’t draw Toffee often because…basically I start Googling Hanfu for reference then just fall into a Hanfu rabbit-hole and never actually draw anything…anyways here is 1reference!)
A beanpole of a man, very tall, very thin, with very red hair. His style, like his life, is a mess.He is a fire aspected dragonblood mortal travelling tea merchant, who grew up in the Grass Spiders Scavenger Lands and travels with a donkey drawn cart filled with tea and poison. He appears quite harmless and road worn, his weapons are very scary artifact swords absent and his martial arts are white veil non-existent. He enjoys smoking his pipe and drinking tea.
He sometimes emulates the heroic and fiery panache of a fire aspect but his true nature is much more like smoke, his anima suffocates and his presence sinks into your surroundings and lingers long after he’s gone.
Recently, he’s gone out of the tea business after an evening of heroic deeds was misconstrued by a circle member who proceeded to shatter his left arm and he fled town with a new donkey drawn cart that houses a corpse-eating ghost.
(Most of my art ref for him is modern-au, sorry XP: 1,2,3)
Smiling Faced Tiger
A travelling fire-aspect swordsman, in black robes and a demon mask. He rarely draws his sword but where ever he is seen the death count in the area rises. He is unusually tall and gaunt, with bloody red hair that he wears out to dramatically catch the wind.
Those who have met him, know him to be unnecessarily antagonistic and obsessed with beauty in all forms. His obsession is to the point that he seems attached to a local beauty, a water-aspected Dragonblood, and is conned into helping others and solving mysteries in order to remain in their presence.
He enjoys smoking his pipe and drinking baijiu. He has absolutely no affiliation or relation with Jae Hyuk Jin.
Recently, he has gone MIA.
Rin
A novice Sijinese Dead Speaker who randomly appeared in Nexus, arriving on a boat with a beautiful water-aspect. He is a lanky fellow, with floury white hair, he is easily spotted in a crowd. He sometimes wears a white featureless mask giving him an uncanny aura but without it he seems rather out-of-place and under-prepared for…anything.
He’s an optimistic mortal who smiles a lot and is kind to children. Even the sudden and unexplained deaths of numerous undertakers and slave-traders that have occurred since his arrival within Nexus hasn’t gotten him down. Even when things get a little over-his-head he always has his pipe and a little wine to get him by.
He doesn’t really know anything about tea-trade and hasn’t encountered anyone who calls themselves Smiling Faced Tiger. He’s sorry he isn’t of much help.
Rin left Nexus not long ago and hasn’t been heard from since.
Hotaru (Chain-Gang)
(This one is actually a different character, promise)
My first Exalted character ever. Hotaru was a child (12~14), who left home with her father after he was cast out as a Solar anathema. She was a night caste herself.
Her hair was blueish black and her eyes were golden like a cat, her body had been mutated by the wyld and huge bony wings extend from her back and seemed to be held together with spiders silk. She wielded a soulsteel scythe and fighting chains the latter of which she wrapped around her waist making her jingle when she walked. She didn’t like wearing shoes.
Her anima was a large shadowy spider.
She was raised on the run by a father who soon died and a Solar circle who didn’t have much experience with children. Her three views were not quite correct but she tried her best to be helpful and survive. She failed in the end.
Thanks for organizing this all, was super fun. Please enjoy this Manus post haircut! I draw a lot of girls normally so I thought I’d mix things up. I hoped to get it to you on Chrissy Day but I’m not as ‘timely’(heh…) as your dear Ledaal. I took some liberties with his jewelry, hope you don’t mind it.
A life of war and politics in Lookshy as an airship pilot ruined him. As a young soldier, it led him to forming allegiance with the soldiers around him, creating pieces of writing to pass the time and build a silent community that questioned the militaristic culture of their home.
He wrote manifestos, he wrote children’s books, he wrote poems, and many, many letters. He was responsible for a rising political faction that threatened to change Lookshy forever - and when it came time for revolution, he failed. The depression he sank into caused him to leave everything he loved behind in exile and walked east until the world fell away to the Wyld.
He wouldn’t come out for 100 years - but when he did, he had skin of green jade, a firewand he has since broken on purpose, a green tiger raksha in his mind, and the exaltation of the Sun, none of which he remembers receiving.
Now he goes forward into life doubting the worth of power, doubting the gods, doubting himself, and the feeling both gentle and vicious that he has the chance to do things right.
He’s 6′1, a beanpole, and likes to wear earthy colors and nondescript clothing. He doesn’t go anywhere in public without full-body coverage due to society’s biases against mutation and his own tendency for repression. Everyone thinks his helmet is doofy, and they’re right. His anima creates little pieces of writing in the air, and his skin has lines of language reminiscent of tiger stripes. He wants to nurture others, but cannot forsake his anger entirely. Will adopt you, and is kind of silly when he isn’t so serious.
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Aryabhata
Defiler Caste Infernal, they/he/she/any
Aryabhata (or Ari for short) exists to defy everything. A mortal who not only attended the Heptagram as a mortal but excelled in it, who consorted with demons, and who frankly cannot go a day without trying to impress someone. You would think them desperate if weren’t onto the next mind-blowing project or discourse-provoking theory. Everyone thinks they hate them, but they are fascinated, too. What will the 4′11 sleepless manifestation of mania do today? Tomorrow?
With their massive, easy smile, their life is sadder than they’d like you to believe. But there’s no time for it - Ari has rivals, and their work is never done.
Shortly after one such rival disappeared and labelled Anathema, they became obsessed, wondering where he had gone off to, how, why, when one day they just disappeared themselves after a concerning and incomprehensible speech about “being seen.”
No one knows what they’re up to now, or when they’ll re-emerge. When they do, though, it will be with fully realized order of She Who Lives in Her Name, and the subverting mercurial silver of Szoreny.
They are tiny. They prefer a noble indigo stolen from princes and a glorious gold stolen from Solars. They have insane outfits regularly, and may be employing a demon to make them so consistently. They can also be a little sleepless gremlin in pajamas - there’s nothing they won’t do!
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The Garappa
Water Aspect, they/he
No one knows where the Garappa spawned on that mountain. A hearty antagonist who demands that passerby wrestle or a vicious beast that strangles travelers in the night – there are many stories that survive the years about their true nature. It’s stories, too, that Garappa loves the most, wanting nothing more than to exist within societies that threaten to write them out entirely.
Whether they are The Garappa, a jovial trickster and sumo practitioner, or the Strangler, a silent murderer, it is a story that they have woven into their own reality. Other things seek to define them - the Black Carp Wanting, a story they have yet to know how to finish, particularly haunts him.
They were raised by a society of spirits, bickering bird-women philosophers, that he came to call his Aunts.
Fate or some such tale brings them to Gloam, away from their mountain for the first time, unknowingly there to meet other monsters such as he.
Garappa is about 6′4 hunched over and almost 7 feet stretched out straight. They only need minimal clothing, but they like to be agile and not burdened from getting wet. They could be convinced into outfits if it is treated like a story costume. He is extremely silly and speaks in dactylic hexameter when he is not nonverbal and muted. Will always want to hear a new story.
im super happy to have gotten you since you got me last year and drew a WONDERFUL sever. i decided to draw he and remedy hanging out since they’re both teenage abyssals (or abyssal-adjacent). i love remedy and her concept very much! (i wish i did something with more polish..)
also an obligatory ping for @shiftingpath. thanks for setting this up!
Aryabhata (they/them) is a Defiler Caste Infernal that loves what they do.
They were mortal once. They quickly got over it. Ari was a mind of full of ideas and a heart full of hubris since they were a young teen, always setting ambition above healthy limits. Despite the constant strain, Ari always delivers.
They would first antagonize any fresh young Dragon-Blooded in their hometown, especially the one or two set to attend the Heptagram. They thought if they pushed themselves enough, won against them enough, they would Exalt.
An exaltation never came. They were of low status and wrote their feats of engineering and theory on the backs of borrowed paper. Never deterred, they barely slept, wanting to live as only the way they want, no matter what they wanted.
They lied.
They lied so well they realized it was easier to become something they weren’t than to force the world to recognize them as what they were. They lied so well, in fact, that they swindled their way into the Heptagram (as a mortal with no official backing). Lied so well that they not only finished their education, but had stellar marks (even if everyone wasn’t sure if they hated them or not), and lied so well that the only ones who noticed their secret demon summoning was the Yozi.
They didn’t lie during their graduation speech, however. They didn’t lie when they said they were a Demon Prince, and they didn’t lie about the magic deadly locusts set to attack anyone who followed them into the night.
-
Ari is short (4′11), energetic, manic, and larger than life. Their biggest patrons are Szoreny and She Who Lives In Her Name, granting wonderful abilities regarding quicksilver/mirrors and levitation. Purple is their color. They are known to make wacky science devices, almost always to help them in Sexy Rivalry.
THEORIES OF NOTE: Round Creation theory, “Gravity Is Possible Through Spheres,” and the notorious Because I Told You So essay.
===============================================
Jade Hand (he/him) is an Eclipse Caste Solar who has a rough time with his exaltation.
Born in Lookshy, his career began with military service. Infantry, quartermaster, failed special service, and airship pilot. His experiences in war have scarred him, with the most traumatic being the battle against Thorns.
His real career worked underneath this, kept him sane. At first he was writing things for his fellow mates in the barracks, and then he was writing for himself, and then.. he wanted to write for the city, the real city, the people suffering under bloodshed and oppression.
He spearheaded a movement with some of his close friends, an underground not-quite-illegal club and political party that pushed for change.
Things happened. He failed.
Whatever was left of him by the end, it may as well have been emptiness. He left everything behind, including his loved ones, and walked alone into the Wyld.
He would disappear for 100 years. He would resurface, mysteriously, with the skin of verdant jade, faulty memories, and an Exaltation he does not rightly remember, now wondering when he would be free of glory.
-
JH is 6′1, kind, and gentle for the most part. He has a tendency to worry and care for those he gets to know. He is usually masked to make his mutation more inconspicuous, but his close friends usually see him free of it. His calm demeanor can be quickly eroded into heated passion, as he is extremely opinionated about.. pretty much anything. He wears mostly browns and golds and oranges and reds.
PUBLICATIONS OF NOTE: political manifestos, children’s fantasy novels, and poetry.
