To start off the year, we’ve gone back and remastered Sylus’ and Jeron’s designs to better match their lore-accurate descriptions!

The “original” designs were something of a test for the illustrator as well as myself to see how my descriptions translated. Since then, they’ve become much more familiar with these characters in both personality and appearance. The result was a revisiting of their designs.

As always, all artwork is done by Rhett Cameron Morris (@firelocket on Instagram)

Jeron

I knew from the start we already had a very good grasp on Jeron. He does have quite a bit more going on and looks absolutely fantastic fully rendered. Left was definitely a good place to start and it’s very clear that it lead to the final result. Jeron now features his guitar in melee mode and his bat familiar as well as his Sion’Dri cross. He’s wearing his very functional and minimalist casual attire featuring his mother’s old boots she handed down to him at some point.

He is exactly how I envisioned him.

Sylus

Well, this was a bit more of a complicated process. Sylus has long been a design nightmare for me. Back when we were working on the illustrations for “Two Minutes to Midnight” he proved to be my biggest point of issue (Rhett was very patient but I know I was reaching critical pest levels at times) Mostly because of his origins as a vessel and less a truly independent character. As a personal note, I did go through some stages of grief realizing how far he’d escaped my control. I struggled to accept what I was looking at. I struggled to accept that he wasn’t just in my head anymore as an amorphous representation of my own struggle with representation. Granted, he always looked a certain way, but unlike Jeron, he was more a collection of concepts than a fully put-together design. I think my beta-readers started forcing me to really think about his appearance in a more solid way.

Anyway…

Sylus features finned ears, shark-tooth underbite, a reverse angler light, and, of course, one of his many signature tentacles. He’s sporting his “casual” attire. The only thing he’s missing to be “formal” is his jacket. He’s holding a glob of the inky acid he uses in combat.

Final Thoughts

Rhett did an amazing job and I couldn’t be happier. They had to listen to me cry about Sylus and have a minor mental break when I realized I had to separate myself from him after 7 years.

Now that their “Two Minutes to Midnight” designs are complete, we have the groundwork to build on with future designs. As of the end of “Two Minutes” and the beginning of “Flyaway”, Jeron is already markedly changed. Sylus will be receiving an overhaul in “The Devil Wears Violet” (working title for book 3).

Remaining designs I’d like to get to down the line:
-Secondary Characters
-Void Spawns / Bestiary
-Other Critical Voidal Entities
-Sylus’ “Lord Form”
-Sylus’ “Final Form”
-Jeron’s “Final Form”
-Jeron’s Familiar’s True Form (she’s a bit more than just a little bat)

The next immediate project is the cover for “Flyaway”.

After that, there’s a massive project that will be undertaken in lieu of illustrations for “Flyaway”.

There’s a lot going on, so I hope you stay tuned!

🦑💜🦇