Dear readers, welcome to the little art-dump at the end of Book 1 from "The Beast and The Swallow". For the longest of times, I have postponed doing a portrait of the main female lead - Lorelei. The reason? I felt like it would be a challenge to depict her the way I imagine her to be. How do you draw someone to be nice, kindhearted, and gentle, but at the same time - naive and impressionable? I also wasn't so happy with one of the earlier depictions of Noah and one of you mentioned that he was not 'dark and scary enough' (given that in both depictions I had him smiling). But how do you draw a character to be earnest, cold, and stoic, but, at the same time, show decisiveness and carrying? Well, in the end, I managed to draw them both to a certain degree of satisfaction. They are not perfect, but still better than before.

The attire they are depicted in is the one from chapters 10 and 11 (The Eternal Flame). The only difference is that Lorelei does not have her veil on.

And, since I have a bit of a soft spot for Gerash, I decided he deserves a portrait of his own. Now, here he is depicted in a traditional binshi attire since, as we all know, he is not only a knight of Norden but also a shaman. The four dots on the forehead are... OK, it was too difficult to draw a wolf's paw at this size, so imagine it's that (I know, it is in no way accurate, but be lenient!). As for the art, don't be confused, I used a bit different technique for him than for Noah and Lorelei. Oh, and the glowy things around him are either souls or mimishi. You decide ;)

But enough with all this serious stuff. Have you ever wondered how some of your favorite characters would look like in chibi-form? No? OMG! I hope it does not mean that you don't have any favorites! Well, in any case, I did wonder. And I did draw them ;). Now, who is who? (I find chibi Noah the BEST! Although, Duncan and Gerash still have a big piece of my heart for themselves. What do you think?)

Now that we have our chibi-mania out of our system, let's concentrate again on the most important part - the story. As already mentioned... somewhere previously, Book 2 will start coming out around the middle of January. Its title? Drumroll, please!

"Hearts of Snow and Shadow"

And it has its own, brand new and 100% self-made cover. Are we getting the drumroll again? No? Oh, please, please, please! Yes, that's better. And now, the big reveal:

I hope to meet you all again for part two! Happy New Year!