Steen's home of the certainly strange
I was in a goofy mood, so I drew this.
I guess it is a good thing that Steen doesn’t have any problems fulfilling her duties, then! Although honestly, as a low-born nightblade, I’m sure Steen is no stranger to “quiet work.” Indeed, I’m pretty sure that particular work experience is why Master Aryon hired her in the firstplace. And boy does Aryon put it to use. A lot.
Can’t be squeamish in Steen’s line of work!
I tried to imagine Master Aryon dressed casual and practical for traveling.
The inspiration was the note in his Dwemer Museum, recommending the visitor come back often as he is always acquiring new artifacts on his travels. This suggests that he is not above a bit of adventuring and wandering around in random holes in the ground (similar to what Steen does in her free time). Of course, he would not be all decked out in his full Telvanni raiment whilst doing so. Hence this drab and rugged little number: ready to weather the most violent ash storm, yet comfortable and flexible for mobility.
Inversely, I always draw Steen in her worn old traveling clothes, without much finery (and I’m uncreative with outfits), so I tried to imagine what Archmagistress Steen would like like in full-on Telvanni finery. I wanted it to be super ostentatious and extravagant. I’m still playing around with the ideas, clearly, but at least she doesn’t look like she just came back from a week-long mountaineering expedition. Maybe Aryon pleaded with her to try to not wear something covered in dirt to a big important function, so she threw this together. I mean, she was a low-born nightblade, so… something something new money. I don’t know.
For the Dagoth Ur costume hands (to go with the Dagoth Ur Mask), I initially did a few trial runs with gluing the nails onto my hands and painting my hands with the facepaint, but I soon ended up with facepaint on everything. So I elected to instead make gloves. Luckily the cloth wrist (and ankle) wraps cover all the seams, so I don’t have to worry about that.
First, I glued long pointy nails onto grey gloves. I used superglue, because they don’t ever need to come off, so I didn’t bother with nail glue:
Then I dry-brushed black onto the gloves, to bring out hand/finger details, and to make the nails look like they reach really far back onto the finger. I went back and fourth for weeks trying to decide if I should make the nails red (the way Dagoth Ur’s nails actually appear) or black (which I thought would look scarier). I went with black, and I don’t know whether that was the right call. I guess I could always re-paint them red?
And, much to my surprise, the gloves were thin enough that I could still operate my phone with them on…
Hehehehehe 🙂
