Goddess of Destruction: Commonweal Fanart

[strikeslip]

I have been saying for ages that I should put my Commonweal fanart on this blog. Finally getting to it, and starting by backdating the stuff I've already posted in rachelmanija's comments. Drawing + commentary under the cut.

This mental image came out of Blossom's transition from Captain to Independent to Naught-but-Power in Under One Banner, the bit that goes, "This isn’t the same voice. You can tell it’s the same person, but Eugenia’s shaking as terrors loose from their bones." and is then followed by Blossom embodying a hurricane of sand and explosions for some hours. In later re-reads, I've been thinking about the parallels between Blossom's metaphysical form and stellarators-- loops of plasma, a high starting requirement, fusion energy bringing the star metaphor, and the end goal of self-maintaining levels of power. If I revisited this image, I'd probably work more of that idea in. Not just a loop of white fire, but the twisting loop and a hint of circling fields of power. Still indecisive about how to relate to "Star of Morning" as a nickname from Grue though, given the potentially-deceptive cross-cultural connotations. More to say on deceptive connotations in some other post.

This was also my first serious attempt at plate armor in a drawing. I put a lot more effort into understanding plate in later drawings, and still have a long way to go. Y'can only learn so much before you just want the drawing to be done, and then there's the complexities of adding in D-rings and sorcerous metalworking for the later Line designs. Overall, I think the Line should look something *like* an evil sorcerer's army due to cultural pressures predating the existence of the Commonweal, but they shouldn't look like anyone else's sorcerous army in the world as it exists. They should give a sense of unease to anyone they take the field against-- not *quite* what's expected, but close enough for the enemy to try the usual tactics. The Commonweal is both something entirely new and the successor state to Halt's various empires; it's just not polite to say this, so nobody in the book comes at it directly. And thus, something of the global aesthetic might be maintained and Zora does not get to add clear visors to the Line armor designs. But like a proper fanartist, I still disregard helmets for the sake of character recognition, so none of that comes out here.