Submissions for the 2023 official The Elder Scrolls Online Inktober art event
All completed in Photoshop by myself for the allotted timeframe during October 2023
The concept was to be some sort of Telvanni fungal tower but set in Blackreach. Originally, I was thinking maybe I could somehow use the stem of the mushroom to look kind of like teeth and to somehow make the top of it look like a skull, but then I decided against it once I realised TESOctober didn't necessarily have to be Halloween/horror themed
I had several ideas for the prompt, ranging from a side-view of an underground bridge in a cave with strange eyes watching a lone adventurer, to a different lone adventurer walking through a library in a more Apocryphal setting, but I felt the cave would be too similar to my Blackreach-inspired "Mushroom" prompt, and the library felt a bit too obvious. I knew there were more Hermaeus Mora themed prompts coming later, too
Maybe I was thinking of Lord of the Rings but somehow I thought of a murky forest with spiders, and thus the dungeon Selene's Web. I like to think that anywhere you go in her territory, her spider children will know exactly where you are at all times
Once again, I had a few different ideas for this one, but I really wanted to try and pick a different setting each time, so I fell back to one of the first things that captured my imagination when I played The Elder Scrolls Online for the first time - just how damn eerie the Argonian Xanmeer can be! Combined with how abandoned and decrepit some of these places are, I thought it would be the perfect place for the ancient burial feel.
There are many things in the universe of The Elder Scrolls that are related to fate and destiny - the Dragonborn Prophecy, Hermaeus Mora, the Vestige and many other player-characters... but again, trying to avoid Hermaeus Mora in particular (due to the recent release of Necrom/Apocrypha in ESO as well as the Mora-related prompts to come), I looked no further than the namesake of the series - The Elder Scrolls themselves
Apparently Ancestor Glades exist all throughout Tamriel, usually hidden or unknown, so I thought why not swap out Skyrim's humid, nearly swampy Ancestor Glade for one more inspired by Summerset and the idyllic landscape?
This charity prompt was added to TESOctober to raise awareness for the No Kid Hungry charity, aimed to fight against childhood hunger
Unfortunately, this one is by far my least favourite piece of the collection, mostly because I spent 2 out of the 3 days working on an entirely different design (A half-eaten apple that covered the whole screen, the yellow-golden flesh actually being a Dwemer city like Arkthzand style)
The background and characters don't feel like they are in the same world to me and it also feels all rushed to me, but hopefully that sort of thing is something I can improve upon in the future. There's only one way to improve and that's by making mistakes
The idea behind this was a twist on the classic trope of a poisoned apple, this time being a little "gift" from a certain Sam Guevenne (who is definitely not the Daedric Prince Sanguine in disguise)
I knew right away that I wanted to make something Dunmer-inspired, especially with the release of Necrom a few months prior, so with inspiration from the The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind artbook and hopes of making a more Velothi character, I brought one of my character's ancestors to life! (Well, in a manner of speaking...)
My character, Nethryn Beleran, has always had an interest in history and culture, so I thought it only fitting to make one of his ancestors, Llieras Beleran
I toyed around with giving him eerie glowing eyes, but I kind of liked how it felt almost like there was an illusion of seeing faint red eyes (or maybe that's just me?)
I almost used this for the prompt "Eyes" way back at the start of the month, wanting to focus on the Eye symbol used by the Mages Guild and also wondered if I should go with a more College of Winterhold style, but decided to keep the more Alinor-themed Mages Guild
Due to a particular lack of time for this one, it's not quite as polished or as detailed as I would have liked, but it was fun nonetheless
There were, again, a few ideas I could go with for this, but I wanted to try and make something a little odd, maybe some sort of skull we're not really used to seeing. I was thinking about doing a Seeker skull, but considering cephalopods don't actually have them but Seekers seem also quite human, I wasn't quite sure how to approach it, so I went with the next best thing - Lurkers
I was inspired by the skull of a wolf-fish, hoping to give it that slightly fishy look to it that Lurkers have in life, and what better excuse to have an odd skull than in some display case?
Okay, I had managed to mostly avoid doing something Hermaeus Mora up until this point because I knew I couldn't have the prompt "Tome" and not make it Mora related... Inspired by some of the in-game Apocryphal-themed books as well as a real book I own, I thought it would be nice to make my own cursed book practically bursting with knowledge (and tentacles!)
Considering I had already used the dungeon Selene's Web for "Eyes", I wanted to investigate some of my most favourite dungeons in the game, my top 3 being Scalecaller Peak, Fang Lair, and Stone Garden, but it just didn't seem right to use any of them for the final prompt for Halloween. Fang Lair has a giant skeletal dragon, sure, but that screams more "dark power" to me than Halloween, and what's spookier than the biggest skeleton of them all, especially since the main boss you fight is literally called Kjalnar Tombskald
"The time has come. Rise, Tzirzhalir. I call you by name! Rise!"
The first time I saw this massive pile of bones pull himself out of the murky depths, I felt my heart sink, and it has remained a fun moment every time I go back there
I thought to celebrate the final prompt of the season I'd do something a little different and have fun with a sort of black and white tattoo-style, whatever it is. Something about Tzirzhalir's design just screams a sweet armsleeve design for me