Art of the Pantheon

Hello, I figure I'll try this multiple-pages thing to see if it makes this any better. So, maybe this page can act as a central hub for Art of the Pantheon and the art and information related to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDflVhOpS4E&feature=player_embedded

So. Here's the rundown if you have never seen any of my posts from this series. Bastion is an indie video game published by Supergiant Games. It's an action/adventure type of game with very strong art direction and design, a great soundtrack, and fun gameplay. The game does leave a lot of the details of the world to the imagination, often leaving you with but a single line of evocative description. Among those minor things was the descriptions of the gods of the Pantheon.
I love the character design and art stylings of the game, and so I wanted to do something with that. One (and later more) of the god descriptions were really inspiring to me, and I decided I'd make some concept images of what the gods look like!
For more on Bastion, see my review.

That's Bastion. I figure a good primer would be the actual descriptions of the gods.

Hense - Goddess of Pain - Pleasure - "They say the Veiled Widow is smiling beneath her robes, her body all scratches and scars."

Acobi - Goddess of Oath and Abandon - "No one bound the Chastened Maid save for herself. Her shackles are her own design."

Lemaign - God of Hope and Despair - "Before each battle, soldiers prayed that the Mason King grant them high morale."

Pyth - God of Commotion and Order - "The Wakeful Bull, patient yet temperamental, adorns the City's walls with his likeness."

Jevel - God of Health and Atrophy - "Half of the Tower Keeper's face is that of a youth in his prime, and the other, an old man."

Yudrig - God of Impulse and Bravery - "The Morning Stallion affects the wishes of all people upon the break of each new day."

Roathus - God of Thirst and Plenty - "The Gorging Host grows ever larger yet remains insatiable, his eyes awash in tears."

Micia - Goddess of Loss and Longing - "The Lorn Mother gave away her heart, and bears the Star of Caelondia."

Olak - God of Chance and Whim - "Alive forever in a single moment, the Carefree Son plays beyond the reach of time."

Garmuth - God of Purpose and Folly - "Despite his lack of senses, the Crippled Duke gives council to the humble and the wise."

 That's them, with links to their pages on the Bastion Wikia.

And of course, this page is used to keep track of the progress I'm making on each God. So here's what I have! In the order above.

Hense

Hense has been one of my two truly in-depth works. I've been fascinated by working on her, she's a lot of fun to draw, and I like her themes. The goddess of Pain and Pleasure is cool character. She is hooded and veiled here, wearing a black dress. Her hood takes a lot of influence from Mass Effect's Tali'Zorah (though hopefully not TOO much), the veil is middle-eastern inspired, and the dress got a lot of help from Arwen in the Two Towers in the flash-forward. The dress and veil are black, with white trim (with a cog-design) and the hood (more a rectangle of fabric draped over in a hood-like way) is crimson with gold thread flames, again with a white cog design.
Hense went through a lot of shifts regarding the veil and the hood and only recently got a full dress.
Images:
Original Sketch (Ick)
Take 2
Take 3
Potential Hood Design (Swirls)
Potential Hood Design (Flames)
Take 3.5 (Flames added to hood)
Redraw
Take 4
Take 4 Color
Profile View
Ink'd Hense (Shown Above)
Hense Body 1
Hense Body 2
Hense Body 3

Acobi

Acobi is the goddess of Oath and Abandon. Acobi is probably the god I've done the most thought about without actually doing any more drawings. The image you see? That's my original sketch. I haven't successfully drawn any more of her. I do, however, have ideas. Chains of words (or Bastion's glyphs), outfitted with a corset, etc. I absolutely don't like the pose here, but I like the hanging head with wet-looking, very unkempt straight black hair hanging over a lot of her face.
Images:
Original Sketch (shown)





Lemaign

This is Lemaign. A lot of Lemaign's design comes from my own mental image of fantasy dwarves. The Mason King wields a huge hammer, and is responsible for most of the architecture in Caelondia, along with Pyth. His design is mostly made from the neck up so far, with a long, curly black beard and a bald head, along with a slightly fatter face compared to some of the more gaunt gods. I have an idea that his skin is actually made from stone, but I'm not sure if I'll actually run with that.
Images:
Original Sketch
Take 2 (shown)
Take 2 Alternate









Pyth:

Pyth is the Watchful Bull, and has three major design components. The first is the general bull shape. That's the issue for me - bulls are hard to draw. The second is an odd horn pattern, extending upwards. For some reason, this is how Pyth is always shown in-game, and the pattern is recognizable most from Zia's harp. The third component is a third eye in the middle of the head - two of the eyes are open at any given time, allowing him to be ever-vigilant. More images of him will come, he's just not been a priority.
Images:
Original Sketch (shown)




Jevel:

Jevel was originally my favorite god, the first image I did, and one of my favorite concepts for a god. Half of his face is as a young man, the other half is an elderly one. I really like the image I drew here - the transition is noticeable yet smooth. I've been focusing on other guys, mostly because I'm satisfied with where I am on Jevel.
Images:
Original Sketch (shown)
Potential color work (tentative)
More accurate color work (the transparency is AWFUL here)











Yudrig

Yudrig is a horse, the Morning Stallion. To be entirely honest, I don't know what to do with Yudrig. He's a horse. That's my main thing. Tentatively, his mane and eyes glow with a blazing light. I really should put more thought into him.
Images:
Original Sketch (shown)








Roathus

This is Roathus. Roathus had a basic early concept that got refine a lot to come up with the current rendition. The best way I could explain his dual concepts of constantly eating and constantly growing were an unbelievably obese person or this, an enormous tree. I pretty consistently forget his weeping. His exact form changed from the original to take 2.
Roathus will get some work continued on him soonish.
Images:
Original Sketch
Take 2
Take 2 Colored (shown)





Micia

Micia is the Lorn Mother. She is the only member of the Pantheon with two negative domains, Loss and Longing. I've taken a liberty with her - for this rendition, I imagine the Olak, the Carefree Son, is HER son, who, as is described in his own entry, exists forever in a single moment. He left time, and she was forced to continue on, and it's forever marked her. Micia has the body of a young maiden with the face of a crone. She has long, white hair - again, symbolism. The Kid, the hero of Bastion, is described as having "his mother's white hair." Yup. White hair is a sign of Caelondia for me, between the Kid and Rucks. So far, she wears the default black dress I draw as a placeholder for the goddesses. She also has one other note: as the bearer of the Star of Caelondia, I wanted to get it into the image. She's torn out her heart, with the Star there in return.
Images:
Original Sketch
Take 2
Take 3
Take 3 Colored (shown)
Posework

Olak

Olak, the Carefree Son. His conceptual design for me is described above under Micia. His visual design may have been very young, but I eventually chose to age him a little bit. It's in flux. I want him to be the source of the very colorful and patterned look of the Caelondian and Ura fashion. He's also got white hair like his mother. I know - the face on the shown image here is kinda messed up. Olak is one of my current focuses on this project.
Images:
Original Sketch
Olak Take 2
Olak Take 2 Colored (shown)









Garmuth

Garmuth has always been one of my favorites. I like him a lot. The Crippled Duke has two notable factors for me. First, he appears only in a mirror (though many of my concept drawings don't include the mirror for simplicity). Second, he has no senses. He lacks eyes, ears, and a mouth, and while I eventually chose to include a nose, the nostrils are sealed over. He also lacks arms or legs, though he wears finery worthy of his title of Duke. It's between Garmuth and Hense for my favorite gods.
Images:
Original Sketch
Profile (no nose)
Profile (with nose)
Take 2
Take 3
Take 3 Colored (shown)
In Mirror

And that's Gods of the Bastion Pantheon! Here's an index of the posts regarding the Project.
Introduction, Concepts, Original Sketches
Hense Take 2, Design Guidelines
Hense Take 3 (with hood designs), Lemaign
Garmuth, a bit more Hense
More Garmuth, Roathus
Slimmer Hense, Hense Color, Windbags (Lore and Pictures)
Micia, the Lorn Mother
Colorful Forms (Hense, Jevel, Roathus, Micia, Garmuth) 
Olak Take 2
Finalizing Hense, Garmuth
Hense's Body

Check 'em out for more detail, and I hope you enjoy this stuff!
End Recording,
Ego.