In darkness she walked, down in the vale, illuminated by the moon and starlight she coveted so desperately.

In darkness she walked, down in the vale, illuminated by the moon and starlight she coveted so desperately. Whispers said monsters do not harm the strange figure, that she controlled the monsters, summoned them… or perhaps she was one herself, for in the wars she struck down warriors and innocents alike. Vanth, they called her. The witch, they called her.

But that was all in a past age. Now? Now she walks only in nightmares.

Vanth is the second character ever we created for The Waking Cloak, but I didn’t actually draw her until a few weeks ago! I didn’t really have any concept of what she would look like, except that I knew purple would be her color.

I wanted to give her similar detail to Veran, the antagonist of Oracle of Ages. However, after struggling with that for a few minutes, I went to study Veran and see how they pulled it off. Turns out her sprite was actually different from the rest–she was 24x16 pixels–8px taller than all the other NPCs in the game!

The idea of breaking convention for this one character really appealed to me. She could be taller, more intimidating, maybe something more than human.

Well, as you can see, the first sprite didn’t go well. She wasn’t intimidating in the slightest. I’d pretty much just drawn the hat and then drew her under it about five or six different ways (I still like the hat, actually). Everything about her just said “hip teenage witch,” which was the wrong impression.

So I scrapped her completely and started over. This was a much smoother process!

(Sorry about the weird quality of this gif. This was the first process gif I did, and I recorded it as a video originally… so this is a gif of a video, lol. Also, yes, the finished version here is not the same as the newest version.)

The hardest part was getting her face right, since the standard eyes made her look too “cutesy.” A veil solved that nicely, plus made for a more unique character.

Another convention I decided to break was the number of frames I’d use. All NPCs have only two frames, but I decided to animate her hair, her dress, and her veil. Not only does six frames allow me to animate all those nicely, but it reinforces an otherworldly aspect about her without breaking too many rules.

I hope you like it! :)