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.
Alright, for this next one, I’m going to need an image between Nona and her adoptive son Caladrius.
Caladrius: He is an unusual Gnatu who Nona created when she was a child. During the process of his construction, she cut herself and a drop of her blood ended up intermingled within the lining of his gears and wiring. As a result, Caladrius is as close to a Demi-god of the oxidized garden as one can get. He has a relatively minor role in this novel, but will become central to another narrative.
Like the conduits, Caladrius is susceptible to change and Nona has an active role in shaping him, but his shape takes the form of his desires and not hers. Caladrius vows to touch the sun and so dreams of growing wings and flying.
He wants to be a bird and He is very tall, so much so that he has to crane his neck to fit inside the room beneath the cathedral flapping his naked wings. As offputting as his appearance may be, Caladrius is a mamma’s boy who dotes on his mother, hand in foot.
Caladrius is undeniably inspired by the songbird’s design from Bioshock Infinite all those years ago. I loved the half-mechanical / organic look of that creepy avian beast and I’m looking for something similar here. Caladrius is an unsettling chimera of plucked feathers, epidermis, and metalwork that never quite achieves the bird he wants to be, even with the blood of a goddess flowing through his veins.
Nona: She is a teenager here and is dressed as a bridesmaid for one of her sister Decima’s pseudomarrages (The Gnatu keep proposing to her and Decima can’t say no). Nona is stitching a clothing tag under Caladrius’s wing atop a ladder, standing on her tippy-toes like she’s hanging ornaments on a really tall tree. These clothing tags include information about how to wash him, what to feed him, and where to return him (Similar to a T-shirt tag just with weird instructions :D). Nona is a serious helicopter parent and gets into the habit of making tags for all the Gnatu she changes. No matter what peninsula they travel to or what form they take, chipmunk, rabbit, squirrel, or bird, they will always know how to find their way home.
Background: They’re in the cathedral's basement preparing for both a wedding and a funeral (Morta has one at least twice a year). The aesthetic here is like the main cathedral and its kitchens. Steampunk, with loads of rusted iron pipes, taconite, and steam whistles. Not exactly the kind of place you’d think to find a bridesmaid and her son.