Illustration

OK since you asked about his nose this is how it is shaped. It’s easier to understand in profile.

Lately I’ve been drawing his nose even a little bigger than this, but this is the basic idea! The dip in the bridge of his nose looks particularly pronounced because of the shape of his forehead and brow.

And since we’re on the topic, here’s more stuff about his face.

His basic eye shape is a slightly rounded parallelogram, and his eyes are so deeply set in his face that they are usually in shadow. He only wears eye makeup when he’s…working. *cringe*

His eyebrows are super angular. They come to a distinct point upward and then slope sharply back down for most of his expressions.

Vahaadi has five piercings in each ear–one in the helix, two in the lobe, and two in the cartilage. I usually draw him with one stud, two medium hoops, and a cuff.

Other facial details I need to definitively nail down are his beard and the gem in his forehead.  Sometimes I draw his beard as a sort of arrowhead, sometimes it’s just a strip–sometimes it protrudes off his chin almost an inch and other times it’s super short. I need to decide what it actually looks like. And his gem is sometimes a diamond shape and sometimes I make it star-cut/flat on top. >.> And I’m not even sure about the color. Initially it was red, but that doesn’t really match his palette. I get around thinking about it by hiding it under his hair and/or cowl but I want to do more with it visually. The crest is connected to his djinni magic and glows when he teleports, levitates, or uses his hammerspace. Maybe there’s even a little bolt of magic that zaps out at whatever he’s using his magic on. That will be interesting to play with when he contends with Galal Alim, who has stronger magic. They’d grapple and fight with each other by shooting magic out of their heads!

For one of my assignments for my art class I wanted to play with silhouettes and thought I’d try one of Vahaadi in a window looking out into the desert sky.  Even though this IS supposed to be Vahaadi and I initially intended it to just be a pretty, meaningless thing, I was struck by how much this design looked like a Christmas card picturing one of the three kings. I even thought I’d continue the series with two other “kings” representing Asia and Africa.

But, I still like the idea that this is Vahaadi wondering at the sign of a new star, heralding the birth of a Savior worlds away. Vahaadi’s not so old that he would have been alive at the time of Christ’s birth, but…the imagery comforts me.

“You may be the only taste of my love Vahaadi will ever know. And I love him.

Did you think you were the only one who does?”

The title is from one of my absolute favorite Christmas songs, How Many Kings.