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.
Bastion is an ancient war machine, repurposed as caretaker in the years following the Last Crusades. His primary role is to serve as an adoptive father to the Sisters of Fate.
Now, when I say machine, I don’t mean in the traditional sense. In this world, machines are the domain of Iapyx, an Outer God born of the Great Devourer, who forsook flesh to shape living metal. He is an engineer-deity, crafting his Eldriatus—living wasps made of iron, with copper tissues, magnesium pacemakers, and organs of smelted alloys.
Bastion is one of the first creations of this line, a Gnatu, known as a Conduit. These Conduits act as hiveminds for the lesser metal beings and were responsible for designing the original drone armies. Bastion himself is a towering construct of steel and burnished brass, with multiple arms built for both creation and destruction. His original, sacred duty was to safeguard Morta before her birth.
His frame is a patchwork of spinning blades, gun-barrel fingers, and powder-burned plating — a figurative and literal killing machine standing between any threat and the immaculate daughters of their Father.
For visual reference, Bastion possesses a single eye, resembling the lens of an old bellows-style vintage camera — think of something like the creature Obscura from The Evil Within franchise, though stripped of the ballerina affectation and made all the more terrifying for it.
Scene Concept:
In the moment I have in mind, the three sisters are climbing on and around him as though he were a playground jungle gym. A sight to make any sane adult shudder — children scrambling around spinning blades, gun-barrel fingers, and razor-sharp implements. But the sisters are unafraid. Bastion would never harm them, no matter how recklessly they dangle from his death-dealing limbs.
By law, by decree of their Father, he cannot harm them.