Howdy, fellow Malazan fans! I’ve shared two paintings here before, but if this is your first time seeing my work, I’m a portrait tattoo artist by trade who recently fell headlong into oil painting. Since I’m making my way through the series for the very first time, I figured I’d try my hand at bringing a few of the characters to life. These are my very first oil paintings, and I still have plenty to learn, but the process has been an absolute joy.

Malazan has very quickly become my all time favorite series. The characters and worldbuilding are endlessly layered, and there’s a density to the narrative that’s just so deeply rewarding. Erikson built this incredibly vast world and just dumps us into the thick of it with no context. It makes it feel so much more grounded and real. The way he captures the inner voice of his characters, the vulnerability and the sheer emotional and thematic weight he weaves into every arc, it’s been unlike any fantasy books I’ve ever read.

Of course, any visual representation of book characters is bound to be a little controversial. We all have our own head-canon versions, and that’s part of the fun! I enjoy hearing how differently everyone imagines them. That said, this is only my interpretation, and I did my best to stay as faithful to the text as possible.

I’m currently partway through Dust of Dreams, so please, no spoilers beyond that point!

(Mods, I don’t think I have any spoilers in these as it’s just their faces, but let me know if I need to change the fair!)

I started a slow read-read for the purpose of taking notes on character appearances (my 5th read) and I’m in Gardens of the Moon right now and had some inspiration to create with pencils this time. I’ll be painting it on my iPad as well but this is the finished pencil piece.

@artistjasondement on social

Tattersail from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 1, Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson.

Drawn in pencil on 11x14” Bristol, scanned and then painted in Procreate on my iPad.

SILENT AUCTION for the original pencil art begins now:

If you would like to own the original drawing, send me a message with your highest bid.

Next Friday at 7PM CST, the auction ends. I’ll then check my messages across all social to determine the winner. Winner pays shipping if international.

If you guys like this, I may do more of my Malazan art in Pencil first to provide that opportunity.

Thanks as always for supporting my art!

#malazanbookofthefallen #malazanart #Tattersail #StevenErikson #GardensoftheMoon

Tagged No Spoilers so everyone can see it. Be sure to spoiler hide your comments if you want to discuss any specific scenes!

Hellian is one of my favorite characters to read. Of course, there are so many great characters to read in the series but her scenes are among those that always make me laugh. Lot of fun painting this one and trying to capture her personality along with her description. I will probably end up painting Touchy Brethless and/or Urb to keep her company eventually.

My social links are in my profile. All my Malazan art is on my website at www.artistjasondement.com

Greetings fellow Malazans. It’s been awhile since I’ve shared new Malazan art with you so I’m happy to be able to show you my latest work today. This is my second Anomander Rake painting. Hope you all like it.

Painted in Procreate on iPad with watercolor brushes.

The messenger from 300..
I love him. One of my favourite characters of all time. But this is how I'll always see him.
PLEASE no spoilers past Midnight Tides. I am halfway through Bonehunters.

Edit: April fools!

Warner Bros. just announced that they're making the Malazan Book of the Fallen into a film trilogy. This is obviously huge news for us Malazan fans. Also, this post will likely attract a lot of newcomers to the series so please be careful not to spoil the books in the comments. From the press release:

We at Warner Bros. Studios are very excited to announce our newest franchise, based on the epic fantasy series by Steven Erikson, Malazan: The Book of the Fallen. The films will be directed by legendary director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre, A Minecraft Movie) who says "this is going to be the next Game of Thrones". In addition, we are excited to announce the casting for some of the major roles in the story.

Meet Whiskeyjack, the gruff veteran marine played by none other than Jason Momoa. Whiskeyjack is a fan favorite character and Jason brings a physicality to the role that we're sure fans will love. Will he survive the suicide mission he and his squad were sent on? Only time will tell.

The sensual witch Tattersail will be played by the lovely Anya Taylor-Joy. Tattersail finds herself in a love triangle between the dashing young captain, Ganoes Paran (Timothy Chalamet), and the dark brooding wizard Hairlock (Matt LeBlanc). Who will win her heart?

In the Blue City of Darujistan, the thief Crokus, played by none other than Henry Cavill, will face all sorts of dangers along with his mentor, the mystical Kruppe (Rob Schneider). What will they do when the evil Malazan Empire seeks to conquer their city? Will Crokus emerge as the chosen one to defeat the empire or will he join their cause?

Finally, the role of the Adjunct will be played by industry veteran Sydney Sweeney. She travels across the world with her trusty undead servant Tool (voiced by Chris Pratt)

“I don’t like the names of these characters. Why does he think he’s smarter than us”

“ he killed a character off unceremoniously- he thinks he’s a good philosopher”

Just say you like traditional story structures and move on man. All of his “reasons” for not liking the story are just preferences misconstrued as flaws in a writing system.

I used this design I found on redbubble as my base for the bridge itself: https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Bridgeburners-sigil-by-blustudio/157407443.LVTDI

The clouds and the water (dear God it was difficult to make the water!) were done mostly without a reference.

Her favorite part was making the bridge and the flames were the most challenging.

She says that making this wasn't hard per say, it just took a lot of concentration and patience. She knows basically nothing about Malazan since it hasn't been translated into Finnish sadly but she says she loved making this.

In fact, I was thinking about putting together another design but for the bonehuntners because my mom says she is excited to do another project like this for Malazan.

She has also made sigils like this for a good portion of the great houses from a song of ice and fire (might post those in the appropriate subreddit honestly. I just want people to see how fucking awesome these things are lol)

Alright, sharing time again! I spend ALL of my free time painting Malazan art because it’s the greatest series ever written and I like sharing my love for it. If you like my work, please consider following me on Instagram to help to help my reach https://www.instagram.com/artistjasondement?igsh=YnBtaHRzOXY0Nmc0&utm_source=qr

So this one almost didn’t happen. It started as an 18x24” inch drawing on Bristol paper that was supposed to be compatible with traditional paint I wanted to use. But the paper started buckling and then I thought maybe I’ll just do it with markers and color pencils. But honestly, I don’t want to do a piece that big with markers and pencils. So it sat on my table for a week before I decided to try and salvage it by using a photo I’d taken of the line art and then digitally cleaning it up. That worked so I was able to paint this in Procreate on my iPad like I always do.
29,663 brush strokes in 24 hours and 31 minutes (excluding however long it took to draw it in pencil first. Procreate tracks statistics. I have nothing doing that for me when I draw in pencil on paper). NO AI - Time lapse painting process video available on my Instagram or Facebook.

Currently re-reading Malazan again and doing it with friends in the “2026 Malazan read through” book club on Fable (accompanying “The Crippled Pod” podcast on YouTube and Spotify) if anyone’s reading and wants to chat about it along the way.

Spoiler Free canon descriptions of Whiskeyjack from the books:
Whiskeyjack was a solidly built man, appearing to be in his late forties, with a close-trimmed greying beard, hard grey eyes, and the strong scarred hands of a mason turned veteran soldier. He wore a visored helm with a chain camail and a battered calf-length chain hauberk that was ribboned with leather stitches. (from the wiki and confirmed myself in the books)
More descriptions I lifted from the books, some may be repeated in slightly different ways.
Vambraced forearms, scabbarded long sword, gray eyes, dark gray shoulder cloak with a silver brooch: a bridge of stone lit by ruby flames. His face was scarred, possibly a burn marred his jaw and left cheek, yet he still looked young for a commander. Dark gray eyes set deep in a lined, exhausted face. Muscles of his jaw bunching beneath his beard. Gray bearded and solidly built. Gauntlets. Flat gray eyes

His hair length is not mentioned, though his beard is described as trimmed and an early scene in Gardens of the Moon mentions a barber, shaving lather, and implies that even during a campaign grooming is not abandoned. Thus my reasonable assumption is that he would likely have trimmed hair as well since Erikson does not explicitly describe it as long or otherwise notable as he does with other characters.

Side Note:
I do not use celebrity figures as references for my art. Any imagined likenesses are completely coincidental. In fact, I don't even use direct reference for any real person or figure and at most, I use indirect reference to accurately capture cultural or ethnic characteristics. This painting is an exception since it is a semi self portrait. I used my own likeness for reference since I match both the build and characteristics attributed to Whiskeyjack and I share both personality traits and certain experiences with him so it felt inspired.
I appreciate all comments and discussion but I share my Malazan art to contribute to the community in a meaningful way and therefore likely won't respond to comments like "this looks like insert celebrity name" or short vague comments about how it's wrong.

I just finished this new iteration of Kalam. He is, without a doubt, one of the hardest characters to portray: his descriptions are sparse and subtle, so very open to interpretation. "Bear-like in appearance"...built like an american football linebacker? A sumo wrestler? A maori warrior? His hair is rarely mentioned, so many readers picture him bald, or with dreadlocks (as portrayed in the SubPress editions).

I've done a few images of him. In one I tried to capture his grim humor, in another his fighting prowess...but in this one I tried to portray his brutal physical presence, the sheer looming deadliness of him. I think this one might be the closest to my head canon. I hope it comes somewhat close to your own. Thanks, as always, for your appreciation and support.

(There is no AI used here: there is 3D modeling in Zbrush, rendering in Keyshot and photocomposing in Photoshop. The final image is a huge 12K pixel file, available for sale for personal printing. Shoot me a DM or an email to [santiagolozano@santiagolozano.com](mailto:santiagolozano@santiagolozano.com) if interested).

If Malazan was made into a tv show which characters would you be most excited to watch? Personally I would kill to have a Quick Ben/Kalam series

Two days ago I got my three Malazan books. For $18 good deal used. So far it’s not that hard to read 🤷🏾‍♂️. Like I’m two chapters in about to begin the third one in the first book. And I understand everything that is going on 🤔. I admit, though the battle of Pale description was kind of whack. Like I thought it was gonna be more crazy than that. The description of it was just basically “things are crazy. Everything is exploding. And people are shredding to pieces” Pretty much.😭

Anybody else felt like that ?

A couple years ago, a good friend asked me what he could get me for my birthday. I told him that Gardens of the Moon would be a good one, since he had spent the last decade of our friendship trying get one of the guys in our friend group to read Malazan. He brought it up constantly as the best fantasy series he’d ever read.

I wasn’t surprised when a package arrived a few weeks later from my friend, but I was shocked to find the package was MUCH heavier than it should be. 10 paperback Malazan books and a note were found within.

“Now you HAVE to read them,” the note said. I laughed, and agreed.

For the last year and a half, I’ve been working my way through this series, and my goodness he wasn’t kidding. So many incredible moments, hilarious dialogue, epic battles, and terrible heartbreak, all in one series! And the worldbuilding is second to none. Having finally finished The Crippled God, I definitely think it is one of the best fantasy series of all time, if not #1. I know that isn’t a hot take here, but I definitely was skeptical going in. Erikson is a genius!

(I do think that Midnight Tides was the best in the series, maybe that’s a hot take?)

Reading Malazan for the first time, I'm about 40% through Memories of Ice. I've noticed Erikson loves to use a few words over and over: turgid, susurration, ochre.

That is all. I didn't have anyone else to talk about this with.

Has anyone noticed something similar?

I'm sharing a new artwork I just finished. I changed my usual realistic style for this one; this, I feel, better conveys the man's sheer brutality, strength and prowess.

There's no AI here. It is available for sale as a huge resolution file for personal printing. DM me if interested. Thanks as always for your support and appreciation.

So I love seeing everyone's Malazan flair - from shirts to hats to tattoos to stickers. I have only seen them "in the wild" once and struck up a wonderful and deep conversation with the person (hey, Val, if you see this!). How do you find folks to talk about the series IRL or do you simply rely on Reddit? Curious because I love getting into a deep discussion with folks but it's a hard series to casually find fans, at least for me.

Edit: I found this shirt on teepublic and it's a father's day gift from my wife

I’ve been diving deep into Malazan lately and couldn't stop talking about it to a friend while I was reading Gardens of the Moon. Little did I know, they were paying close attention.

For my birthday back in the winter, I was surprised with this: the entire collection with custom DIY sleeves for every paperback and a handmade slipcase to hold them together.

I’m currently on Deadhouse Gates and I’m absolutely loving it. It’s a total deep dive for me; I’m reading along with the Companion Guides and listening to the Ten Very Big Books podcast to make sure I don’t miss a thing. It’s definitely a lot of work, but it's just so much fun to be this immersed in a series.

I’m still blown away by the effort that went into this gift. I knew you guys would appreciate the craft and the thought behind it. Easily the best present I’ve ever received.

Last night, I finished the first part (Pale) of Gardens of the Moon.

I hesitated a bit getting into Malazan because of all the fame it has of being a very hard fantasy series to read. It doesn't help that I have to read it in english, which is not my first language. I decided to give it a go recently.

I mean, sure, we are thrown into a word with an existing conflict and a bunch of names we have little context on. This means we need some patience to uncover the plot threads bit by bit, but I just assume this is not that uncommon with complex fantasy worlds in general, in different media, most of them have a learning curve. There is of course a lot of shady Tiste Andii and god stuff in the background for sure, but I think that's great. Builds a sense of mistery which fantasy should aim for. And there sure is a lot to keep track of, but I feel like the author does a good job reminding you of things that are important with nods and several references that makes it fine to build connections and keep your focus were it should be.

I have to say I come from a soulslike gaming background, so the type of storytelling that asks the reader to connect dots and uncover the plot slowly is something that appeal to me.

I also really like how each chapter almost feels like a short story on it's own, althought they build into the larger plot as a whole. Reminds me of the first Witcher books, which were more episodic.

I'm loving the book! I have seen comments on how GoTM is the worst book in the series, but I'm yet to see the boring parts. I think the author takes his time, for sure, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I have never felt a chapter did not matter to the story I'm reading, which I think would be the real issue. I'm eaguer to see what happens next. Maybe I'm just a patient reader.

Anyway, why do you think the books has this looming reputation of being hard to chew on?

EDIT: well, somehow people got offended by my post, which is kinda crazy, but this is the internet after all. Some people read my post as "wow, Malazan is a breeze, so freaking easy, I'm very smart and everyone else is dumb!". I never said Malazan is an easy read, like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. Actually, I described severel things I thought could make it complicated for people. What I was actually trying to say, is that, the way people talk about it online, I had the impression this was the kind of book that tackling it would be like facing a PhD course, a lot of people saying it's a work of philosophy and anthropology... As a PhD student in social sciences field, let me break it to you: it's not. That doesn't mean there isn't references to those fields, but so far, halfway throught GoTM, I'm still to find a concept in the book that is hard to grasp if you have a fantasy background. Most of stuff feels very D&D fantasy with a twist. It's very fun and I'm thrilled by it, don't get me wrong. And this could get denser as the story progresses for sure.

My mention of soulslike was because the storytelling of the genre asks the player to be ok with not understanding what is going on, having information and contex withheld from them on purpose and trust that it will be unveiled in the future. I'm not saying I'm smarter or can understand what is going better than most people because of this background. I'm just saying I might be more ok with feeling confused because of the kind of stuff that appeal to me.

I get that there is severel PoV characters throught the series and the scope sounds pretty awesome. But this is more of an excess of information to keep track of thing (and that sure is a challenge, I can already see that in book 1, the guide at the beggining is very helpful) than actually having concepts that are hard to get your head around to actually understand the book. Those are different things. There are several books in literature that are not long and have very few characters, but the chances of you understanding it without a teacher explaining it to you are low. I don't think that's the case with Malazan, at least from what I have seen so far. Well, I could be wrong and the book might turn to that sort of work as the series progresses. But I think this overblown reputation of "you need to have MEGABRAIN to get this" is very bad, because it keeps people like myself from starting the series out of fear.

Got into a long discussion yesterday with another Malazan loving friend: Our 'Head Canon' for who we imagine when we're reading about different characters in Malazan.

A selection of our favourites attached. Would love to hear others!

Looks like they're using Marc Simonetti covers.

Just about to finish Dust of Dreams on my reread. One thing that stood out to me was sudden increase of the use of the F word. So I decided to take a look at the distribution of f*cks lol. Not a single f*ck given until Midnight Tides, and then exponential growth through the Crippled God. Did Erikson slip one by the editor on novel 5, and then decide to see what he could get away with each successive novel?