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 detailing the duel between Igor and Bastion. In this particular scene, Bastion has dropped Morta into the Origin Well and Igor’s attempts to save her are thwarted by the elder machine. Igor fights Bastion but is sorely outmatched.
Bastion: The Gnatu gather around him, interlocking with each other and forming an exoskeleton of claws, metal cages, cogs and wheels. Bastion becomes a living hive, a raptor made of claws and stingers, pistons and spark plugs. (I always imagined his true form like a multiarmed raptor stalking the halls, leathery bellows curving around corners and behind doors, the dark corners illuminated by his everwatchful lens.) He moves with an unnatural quickness, the Gnatu made into a phalanx, a shield wall against Igor’s attacks, and the poised lethal sting of a scorpion’s tail. Iapyx is the hive mind and the Gnatu become whatever he needs like a school of fish beneath the practiced hand of a talented puppet master. They are an extension of his body, a cloak and a shedding skin. Iapyx sees them only as tissue. Quite a stark contrast from his daughters.
Igor (Adult version): He is outmatched here, his hooves broken, antifreeze leaking from his joints like a sprung artery. Yet, trembling, cracked, and beaten, Igor doesn’t surrender and stands on shaking knees to face an insurmountable force. Igor is a machine born for a single purpose, to protect Morta, and he will carry out that purpose until the plug is pulled. A plug Iapyx fully intends to yank from the wall.
Background: The two fight in the cathedral around the Origin Well. The Origin Well is a pit carved out within the cathedral altar where the sisters toss the remains of cut fate. In truth, it is a one way portal to the third peninsula where the twisted deity Millia Gnu Aye resides. The well itself is kind of like a warped wishing well with pulsing tumorous growths between the bricks and the mortar. Something evil clearly dwells within.