Cypnov: Some Concept Art

Cypnov cover art:  The second story in the Perennials saga takes place on an alien world called Cypnov, which is home to a bird-like race called "Radilians." I first came up with these creatures on the Maxis game Spore, in which I designed a turquoise, winged creature with a thick, curved tail, which normally arches behind its back like a scorpion's tail. The tail is tipped with a leathery pouch which can spit poisonous barbs. 

The cover art, as it appears on fanfiction.net, was a tricky mixture of Photoshop and hand drawing. The sketch of Rose and her Radilian companion (who, for the sake of avoiding spoilers, I will not identify here), was mostly done using markers and colored pens.

When designing their armor, I used elements of Roman armor as well as some armor designs from Skyrim. The original sketch was not done with the kind of lighting the background required, and so I also had the difficult task of adjusting the coloring, using a mixture of orange and black color gradients, to fit the background. The original image of Rose and the Radilian is here presented:

Radilian design: When I first designed the Radilians on Spore, I had not started writing The Perennials yet, let alone a blog where I post concept art, so I didn't save any images. This image is as near a reconstruction as I could get. 

As the Radilians are a flying race, writing and revising Cypnov entailed the difficult task of constructing such a world. The Radilians' culture and their technology would center on their ability to fly.

The Radilians' culture, as will be further explained as the story progresses, is based on a mixture of Prussian and Japanese culture and history. The Radilians, like feudal Japan, are an honor culture based on knights and warlords, but they also are a highly militaristic race, like the Prussians.