Gooday everyone,
Welcome to the Deacon Corner. If you’re new here, these galleries dive into the inspirations behind the images you’ll find throughout the books posted on these pages. In these issues, I also like to share the commission details for each project, so readers can follow along with how these images came to life.
If there’s a particular piece you’re curious about, you can find all previous issues under my journal entries or linked directly beneath the images within each chapter.
Now before we begin, none of these beautiful art pieces would exist without the incredible talent of Sickjoe who is the creative force behind all the artwork in these books. Quite literally the heart and soul of this visual world. If you appreciate his work as much as I do, I encourage you to visit his gallery and explore more of his stunning creations.
Now, without further ado, let's take a look at the featured image and the commission details below.
We've got pieces for Tyke Morta and Decima, now I need one for Tyke Nona. This one will also serve as an introductory piece for her conduit, Charon. In this scene, we see how the second generation Gnatu are made, crafted from molten iron ingots, and the fates of stillborn infants. Nona weaves the tattered fate of the unborn and pieces together a fabric she embeds within the iron shell of a larval Gnatu. Unlike mortals, the Gnatu carry fate within their bodies never to be touched by the Isomerase.
Background: We are visiting a place called the orphanage. It is a massive steam-powered engine room run by pistons, hot water, and fire. Think of the piston power engine room of luxury ocean liners like the Titanic. Small human bones embedded in iron ingots are stacked all around and a conveyor belt runs pieces of metal through the white-hot flames to be shaped into fingers and claws, guns, and blades. Similar to the kitchens, there are Gnatu down here, but instead of pots and pans, they wear toolboxes, lanterns, oil, and gas cans. As an added detail, the Gnatu who get too close to Nona behave like children, crawling around on their bellies and sucking on their fingers. Just like Morta and Decima, Nona unconsciously emits a dog whistle that drives the Gnatu to behave in ways that please her... In Nona's case, they act like toddlers.
Nona: She's a child in this piece, dabbling in an unusually mature art. She sits on mounds of iron ore and we can see bones embedded in the metal—skulls and femurs of small children who never had a chance at life. The tattered remains of fate still cling to the bones, the leftovers of the tapestry that Morta cut from the Isomerase (Think of the 'DNA' chains you designed for the prior isomerase pieces and what those would look like cut). Nona gathers these remains with the needle from her neck and crafts a new tapestry from the sparks of ephemeral life.
Despite the unusually macabre nature of the scene, Nona is quite cheerful, with a smile and a blush, she weaves swaddling clothes for a baby boy. Nona intends to embed the knitted fate into the molten half-shaped metal shell sitting in her lap (The larval beginnings of a Gnatu). Sparks bounce off her skirts like water against wax paper and the flames of the heated metal do not affect her. As a daughter of Iapyx, by law, neither she nor her sisters can be harmed by flames.
Charon: Charon is to Nona like Igor is to Morta. However, while Igor takes the shape of a steed with a scarlet hourglass, Charon takes the form of a butler and husband. The conduits evolve to suit their master's will and Nona's will is that of a budding mother, a closet tomboy, and a romance novel enthusiast obsessed with the concept of unrequited love between master and servant. However, as innocent as Nona's thoughts may be, Charon takes the appearance of a badly misinterpreted Vitruvian man. Multiple arms jut from his exposed copper exoskeleton and he wears human faces over his lens, the leathery cheeks of mortal men stretched over a wooden frame. He has a mask for every expression, happiness, sadness, anger, concern, etc. The excess masks dangle from his neck and shoulders. Pocket watches hang from his vertebrae and tools erupt from his wrists as he works on the legs, eyes, and teeth of the unborn Gnatu coming down the conveyor belt. He is, for lack of a better descriptor, a mechanical, multi-armed Leatherface with the exposed endoskeleton of a terminator. Still, as frightening as he is, Nona is completely at ease around him. In many ways, I'm drawing inspiration from the game Bioshock and the relationship the little sisters had with the big daddies. Seemingly innocent little girls collecting necrotic material from corpses all the while holding the hands of a grotesque monstrosity who they saw as their father.