AotP: Hense (Slimmed Down, Colors), Windbag Lore

Previously on Art of the Pantheon:
Introduction, Concepts, Original Sketches
Hense Take 2, Design Guidelines
Hense Take 3 (with hood designs), Lemaign
Garmuth, a bit more Hense
More Garmuth, Roathus

So, have some Hense.

So, the hood/face don't matter here, though it was alright practice. Still missed on the eyes (actually the eyes here suck. Not only are they entirely the wrong expression, they don't even line up with each other). Instead, what you should look at is the shoulders. Compare to previous entries (if you forget, I now have links up at the top!). If you can't tell from the images, you can tell by the title of the post. I mentioned last time that I thought it was the wide shoulders that was throwing off the robes, and I think I was right, because this worked pretty good. Have to keep this in mind in the future.
I might also be able to drop the neckline a bit, it seems a bit weird coming out of the veil straight down. Actually, never mind. It's too far to the left is what I think. Yeah, the makes more sense. At this angle, it shouldn't be coming straight down from the nose line, it should be more in line with the neck, which means the eye on the right I guess.

So, um, I don't want to make a post with just one little thing like this. Maybe if it was a new god or a major revision, but a very minor variation doesn't get a whole new post. So...hmm. What can I do with the rest of this post? Oh, monsters!

So, Bastion has two main nations/races, the Caelondians and the Ura. The Caelondians had the City, and were the dominant race on the continent. The Ura lived underground in the Tazal Terminals, and were long ago trounced by the Caelondians. Now, each of these two had a very distinct feeling about the Gods.
Caelondia was very in touch with the gods. It talked about them, and they openly worshiped all of the gods, though some more than others. Micia is the great patron of all of them. The Lorn Mother bears the Star of Caelondia, which is either where they drew the nation's name and symbol from or they started calling it that after how much they worshiped her. She's easily the most referenced god in the Pantheon - anytime you hear them talkign about Mother, it's her. Her name is used in the same sort of place we would use God. The other one they focus on is Pyth. Pyth is their great god of Order. His horns frame the Marshall's Badges, his visage adorns the Rippling Walls, they have mechanical Pyths as guardians, Pyth's iconography is probably the most prominent in the game, even more than Micia's. As they mention in the game, the Caelondians made a habit of objectifying the Gods. The in-game example is that they made the Gods into toys, like the Plush Pyth. (if you don't know it, check out http://www.annathered.com/2011/07/28/stuffed-stuff-plush-pyth-from-bastion/. Also, this thing is cute as hell, I totally want one). I assume that the implication is that this was their way of handling the mystery of the gods and their powers (my assumption come from the Ura context, give me a few moments to get to that).
The Ura are very different about the Gods. It's said that they fear the Gods, and they don't like the way the Caelondians make them into things and soften up their significance. They consider them to be great and might, but terrifying. I get the feeling that it's a bit like the muslim "don't make icons of Allah" thing but with several gods. My interpretation is that for the Ura, worship and religion are very private things. We have no idea if any of them are worshipped especially, but Zulf seems to have some of the same reverence for Micia (hear his song if you don't know what I mean). That could just be Zulf though, since he acts as an ambassador and likely spends a good deal of time in the City. Zia can't be used as a good judge of the Ura either, since she's spent her whole life in the City.
But through both of these, there is another category that the game doesn't really discuss the gods' place in. Monsters. The monsters are something strange in the game, and fall into three categories.
The easy ones are the plants. Obviously, the plants like the Pincushions and the Stabweeds and the Vineapples and all of them don't particularly care about the gods. They're plants. However, obviously something cares about them, or they wouldn't be there. And so, which god (or gods) cover plants? I say it's mainly Roathus. I mean, in this version, he's a plant himself. Makes for a pretty good connection point right there. Simple.
Next up are the animals. This means that it's generally referring to things like the Peckers and Lunkheads (but also includes less common fare like Rattle-Tails and Anklegators). So, just like the plants, the animals kinda already have an obvious representative in the two animal-form Gods: Pyth the Wakeful Bull and Yudrig the Morning Stallion. I kinda get a better vibe from Yudrig on this one - Pyth already has a lot of duties and is a big part of the game, and is very orderly, while Yudrig is wild (one of his domains is Impulse!) and honestly needs a bit more importance to the game. So Yudrig watches the animals.
Those two were pretty obvious. The last category, not so much. They're the Windbags. The three enemies from the game (the Squirts, the Gasfellas, and the Scumbags) are the three life stages of the single Windbag species. They're just, well, there. They don't seem to communicate with either the Ura or the Caelondians, but have their own social structure and perform their own general activity (such as the Gasfellas that run the mine). So where do they fit into the gods' plan? I don't know really. I don't think any god effectively covers these guys. Maybe they worship all the gods on their own like the Caelondians and Ura do, but I instead like the idea that perhaps the Windbags are godless. They're a forsaken people, living in any way they can. Their innate violent tendencies are a direct result of this. Really I can't find a better explanation for how they fit into the order.
If you really don't like that, perhaps they're the children of Lemaign. The Windbags originate in Burstone Quarry, so maybe the Mason King watches out for them. I mean, they work in the Workmen District of the City, and they wields picks, so maybe Lemaign is the right fit for them. I still think the Godless thing is cooler though.

And now, your reward for tolerating all that: this article has been written over a few days, interrupted by stuff, so I came up with a few other art bits over the time.
First, since I was just discussing the Windbags:

So here's the Scumbag. I don't really like the Scumbag drawing - these guys really don't have any interesting features unfortunately. It's all in their animations. Thankfully I don't need to expand upon this drawing for the project - these are just for fun.











This is a squirt again. I figured while I was drawing the other windbags that I might as well draw another squirt - they're cute and easy to draw.

And of course, a Gasfella! I spent some work on this one. Now, obviously my mechanical pencil doesn't come in blue or green, but still, imagine he's colorful. Actually it would be sweet if they made mechanical pencil leads of colored pencils - I mean, you pull it out and replace it when you want to change colors and stuff. That'd be pretty sweet. I should look into that.
Anyway, back to this sucker. Hand isn't quite how I want it (and I hid the other one because of it) but basic idea is fine. The star of Caelondia there isn't universal - this guy works in the Workmen Ward. I also think they personalize those bracers with their own designs. The pick is not detailed, this is just a sample of where it would be.


And now the rest of the stuff!

Hey, it's the same Hense from above! Except this time I went into gimp and airbrushed over some colors. I wanted to get a firm hand on what her colors would look like. I really like how the colors line up on the hood, all three of them. Her skin color will be different with wrinkles and scars casting shadows and highlights all around. He veil will likely be a bit darker, but I just wanted to make sure it differentiated here from the shadow the hood cast. Maybe in the future I'll make the inside of the hood a very dark red, that could help. The robes...I don't know what color they should be, black was a default. Meh. Black works, it's just boring. Fits the widow thing.




And here's the last bit, I overlayed it over the shading from the image to give an idea (though it sure ain't perfect).

I like it! So there it is, a very basic look at Hense and her colors.
So yeah, that's about it for today. Later folks!

End Recording,
Ego.