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.
Velbrava was never meant to be anything. A lesser engineer, abandoned in the wake of the Vibriatus exodus—his name severed from a body, his purpose lost in the dark world. He lingered in shadow, forgotten, a ghost without flesh, until desperation drove him to commit the unthinkable: he attempted to steal one of Icarus’s empty vessels.
But the vessel was a trap.
Velbrava was caught and imprisoned, not in chains, but within an eye. Trapped inside Icarus’s gaze, he was left with a cruel task: to shape a body of his own, cobbled from discarded tissues and scraps of failed forms.
What emerged was a broken, misshapen cricket—a mockery of design. His joints crack and grind where they don’t quite fit. Antennae sprout from his limbs instead of his head. His skull is swollen, too large for his body, giving him a hunched, trembling silhouette. To the untrained eye, he is little more than a malformed insect. A mistake.
But Velbrava endured.