Cursed

Just don't call him a vampire!

Introducing Jacob Edwards. This is the first ever portrait I have painted of a character that has been with me since, ooooh, about 2001? He's gone through a few changes over the years, but he is essentially the same man, and he is a demanding little s.o.b! Most of my (unfinished) original stories end up being about him. Jacob is a Sentinel (or, as they are known now, one of the Cursed), and they are basically my take on the vampire myth (which I'm not going to go into here, because it would take all day for me to type out their mythology!)

Jacob looks like man in his late 30's, but is in reality nearly 500 years old - he was born into Elizabethan England before he undertook the ritual to make him a Sentinel - and elite sect of warriors created (and later abandoned) by the Church once they realised that the original ritual they were using had become corrupted by the Void (another, darker plane of reality that overlaps with ours... stay with me! I know it's utterly bonkers, but it's a fun world to write for!), inflicting Sentinels with a blood curse. Some embraced their vampiric lifestyle with gusto, whilst others (like Jacob), hate the connections to folklore and 'misguided, superstitious peasants' and refuse to recognise themselves as vampires, even though that is where the myths originally came from.

Jacob is aloof, bitter and reserved (and a complete and utter prima-dona attention whore who won't leave me alone!) but also faithful and utterly devoted to his role as Sentinel, protecting this world from incursions from other, far more horrible planes and hunting down people who are determined to summon nasties and said nasties if they manage to make their way over here (guess who takes massive influence from Lovecraft... :whi.

Painted entirely in Photoshop 7, no reference (because I am bad).

For the record, I hate painting hair... :rolleyes:

The concept of the Cursed and Jacob all belong to me!

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EDIT: Why do thumbnails look so SO BAD?! Annoying!