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.
This moment follows Velbrava’s grisly triumph. Icarus, torn apart from within, lies gutted and lifeless—his once-mighty frame reduced to a hollowed vessel. From the remains, Velbrava emerges, no longer the awkward ratling but a perfected engineer of famine and pestulance.
Where once his form was misshapen, now everything fits, unsettling symmetry with purpose. The last remnants of Icarus cling to him. A shard of the old engineer’s soul has fused with Velbrava, gifting him the cunning, cruelty, and brutal precision that once defined the Rat King himself.
But Velbrava is no mere inheritor. He is evolution itself. His swarm, the locusts, gather around him in a thick, writhing cloud. They form limbs of chitin, fingers and toes that stretch for miles, casting shadows over the dunes with great wings. He is the hive mind, the center of the plague, a singular intelligence pulsing at the core of a million wings.
In the end, Velbrava is Icarus’s greatest creation.