Gooday everyone,
Welcome to the Deacon Corner. If you’re new here, this space dives into the inspirations behind the images you’ll find throughout the books on these pages. What began as a place to share commission breakdowns has grown into something more. In addition to detailing how each piece came to life, you’ll now find expanded chapter notes, lore entries, and my own black-and-white concept illustrations which are raw glimpses into the ideas that shaped this world before they fully took form.
Before we begin, it’s important to say that none of the beautiful stylized images found in the hard and soft copies of these books would exist without the incredible talent of Sickjoe who is quite literally the heart and soul of this visual world. If you appreciate his work as much as I do, I highly encourage you to visit his gallery and explore more of his creations.
Now, without further ado, let’s take a look at the featured image and learn a bit more about the lore hidden in this chapter.
I need a piece between Morta and Igor in the cathedral but, this time, as children.
Igor: When Igor first manifested as a conduit for Morta, he wasn’t quite as menacing a steed as he would later become. In the beginning, he looks like an oversized daddy-long legs spider with much of his inner workings exposed revealing the open guts of a clock. He has no skull to cover his lens, no saddle, or hooves. A conduits development reflects the maturity of their charges and so, given Morta’s age, he’d be rather crudely assembled here, free wiring and an exposed oil filter, etc.
Morta: Tyke Morta is standing in front of one of Igor’s legs, pressing her back against him, level to his knee. You know those moments when children measure their height by striking marks against a doorframe? Morta’s using Igor for that, but she stands on her tiptoes trying to cheat the system, rather frustrated by her stunted growth in comparison to him. Next to her, a group of smaller Gnatu have climbed atop one another, forming an unsteady tower, the top most machine drawing a chalk mark on Igor’s leg just above tyke Morta’s head.To her dissatisfaction, even on her tiptoes, she’s a great deal smaller than him…
Background: We just need the cathedral backdrop for this one. Pews, metal pipes, mounds of taconite and plenty of steam. The Gnatu not roped into measuring Morta’s height, gather around saluting her from the shadows, beneath the pews and taconite, forever toy soldiers in a little girl’s playroom.