A Pic I did for an RP character of mine. Nathaniell Thornedal, the blind bard, called the sanguifer by a few people.

The character is influenced by a few things. For one, my own desire to be an intime bard. I'm learning to play the lute right now ( which is why I don't submit much artwork, among other reasons ), and my singing is not THAT bad - slightly above average, I'd say - but I still have a long way before me. The staff he carries around - well - that design is old. If You've seen my Furry Movie submission, there is one that looks very similar to it in the picture; it's symbolic for the influence of Rivia, a parasitic entity, on the character. The clothes are a mix of what I own and what I would like to own. The names - Vates Caecus and Sanguifer are similar to those Ansgar was called in a Ballad that is quite famous around LARPers in germany - the "Feuersaenger", where the refrain goes in Latin like thsi:
"Caella sanguine in nigra
Vates Ignifer mortem cantat!"

roughly translated into "The sky was as black as blood; The fire-bard sings of death." ( Well, it's Firebringer-Bard, actually. Plus, in latin, it can be understood as "sings death" = brings death with his singing. Makes sense, since the Bard in the ballad brought down a great rain of fire with his song as an act of venegance upon a cruel duke ).
It's a really great song; shame it's never been translated into english.

The concept of the character is, as far as I know, more or less original. Nathaniell's wish was to become a bard, and the best one around, if possible. He's very talented in playing the instruments, but quite catastrophic at singing. One day, he finds an old ruin with a murky pool inside, from which he hears a voice, the voice of an entity calling itself Rivia. He makes a deal with it: He'll get the voice of an angel in exchange for his eyesight. A second later he finds out how literally Rivia meant that - something leaps out of the pool and - well, I won't give You the graphic details, but it ends up living inside him, using his eyes as a window to the outside world. I also won't go into detail how he ended up blind, but I guess You can imagine. Still, Rivia did trick him somewhat - his voice is angel-like, godlike even - and no mortal being can stand listening to it at it's full capacity; it ultimately causes severe brain damage, or even death - it's victims experience a feeling of extreme bliss, then start bleeding out of nose, ears and eyes [ hence his name - Sanguifer, Bloodbringer]. Too beautiful to bear, indeed. So now he has to run around, purposefully toning down his voice, never using it to a great extent, because he's never sure when the threshold between beautiful and deadly will be crossed.

Well, so much for the character. As for the picture itself: Inked on average printer paper, pencilled the background in ( and didn't even try doing extraordinally well at it ). Coloured in Photoshop. I could say I left the background sketchy and blurry on purpose, but truth is,I was too lazy to make a detailed one =P I know, I gotta work on my lazy attitude =)

Okay. So this is the compensation for writing basically nothing in the comment box on my last submission. A wall of text causing instant TL;DRs.. well, wahterver =)

Art + Character are mine. You'd never guessed, huh?

~Sylv