“At least I die knowing my sisters are free.”

Back in 2013, I did a painting of Almorra Soulkeeper, the most badass general of the Vigil.* And back then, I said she’s not my most favorite charr in the game.

* (before LS3 happened)

And… neither is this one. But me long and convoluted point is, they both have what I love about ANet’s little world: a totally awesome backstory (which I will delve into later).

Kalla, unlike Almorra, doesn’t really have an ingame design, so this was a fun challenge. There’s only a few tidbits of lore to go by, some being heavilly contradictory (mostly the statue and the newly released elite spec art clashing together, which makes me believe – and don’t quote me on this one – that maybe the “charr renegade legendary stance” was supposed to be her grandsire, Pyre). It would have been easy just to copy the mixed message from the game, but I wanted to take it a step further and practice my design chops a bit. To create a striking, visually interesting character, especially if it’s supposed to be a story lead or a prominent figure, is a bit of an alchemy (not the eternal kind).

So I took the hair, horns and overall skull shape from the statue, reinforcing it a bit with some more lioness-esque physique (to push forward the idea of a fearless badass fighting with and for her sisterhood). The latter, together with her afforementioned grandsire Fierceshot, provided me with the basic coat color.
The Renegade spec artwork features a very prominent set of stripes, but I took a bit of a detour and instead of just going with dark black tiger stripes, I drew inspiration from skin painting and tattoos of various warrier cultures and turned the ordinary stripes into a bit of a warpaint.

Bam, legendary renegade.

(And I was also itchy to try out something that I could use as a “classical painting” for a background somewhere else…)


Artwork sponsored by ArenaNet.

Original image: https://c-t-elder.deviantart.com/art/Kalla-717750651

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