Opal DeWolfe is a character from my own imagination who was featured prominently in a short Dungeons & Dragons-style game I ran for my friends. She is an expert fighter, possibly hands-down the best in the world, and she supplements this with abilities such as fire manipulation and simple weapon generation in order to be a nearly-unstoppable force of nature. If she weren’t working for the good guys, she would be a major threat to the modern fantasy world she inhabits. Even though she’s an incredible warrior, however, fighting to Opal is simply a purpose: She is fully invested in the cause of the organization she works for, the Guardians, but if they didn’t exist Opal’s life would very likely not be worth living. She hides behind a mask of impatience and sarcasm in order to keep people from worrying about her.

In creating this image (which took about four hours total from design to render) I was very focused on the details of her face, such as her scars and crow’s feet. She isn’t all that old, only in her early 30s, but I wanted a particularly “tired” took, that of someone who is taking things one day at a time. I feel like I did a good job of building her expression too: It’s an equal mix of “annoyed,” “impatient” and “sad.”

Media: Digital (Adobe Illustrator)

Time: ~4 hrs.