The Neighbours: Commonweal Fanart

[strikeslip]

I have been saying for ages that I should put my Commonweal fanart on this blog. Finally getting to it, which includes backdating the stuff I've already posted to tumblr. Drawing + commentary under the cut.

So I got really excited thinking about Creek embroidery/clothing decoration and how that might interact with both having a gean and a clothes-clerk and with the very local established creek culture that predates the Commonweal. This came out of that. Several bits of this that I'm unhappy with -- the designs of ties on some wrists could be improved, I learned to contra dance between drawing this and now, which means I'm left going "Huh, I guess Dust is leading, I did not intend that originally, but fine," and I'd actually like to work more patterns into the fabric, to get away from the baseline Greek ethnic dress I started with for the dancing clothes in particular. Second Commonweal aesthetic to me is a blend of western (Rust's hat and jacket and horse made an immediate impression), Greek (lot of the names), classic western fantasy (we've got plate armor and 'dragons'), and one or more African options, and I think my balance between those elements is off.

It's also hard to make the Creeks look like they can straight up rip arms off, but surprisingly easy to make Shadow look like a kid in comparison. Happy with the general color choices, happy with the team's various fashion choices-- Fire with the Line bootlace ratchet, Constant just looking a bit like a math ghost, and so on. And with the embroidery designs, which are themed after Laurel's army, Split Creek, the Northern Hills, and in Constant's case, a general pattern of waterwheels reminiscent of flowers since Constant has no specific place of birth to claim heritage and pattern around, and Independents wouldn't have a traditional career pattern either.

Anyway, getting into contra has eaten up a great deal of what was my drawing energy (not a lot of spare time in my life to begin with), but also I am enjoying it. And the Commonweal books can take partial credit for that. I still think about ceramics structure every time there's a call for a hey, and it is entirely hilarious.