"how's the Crowned Taranza phase 2 design coming along?"
great question, random thoughts in my head! here's the current title and time I have on it.
that time is in hours:minutes.
it's not quite as bad as it seems, that time does include figuring out a design (a lot of little adjustments throughout that) as part of the sketching process. there were like 26 hours on this before I even started coloring.
I am currently in coloring hell lol, but I think I've got something decent as far as a color palette goes. maybe. idk. this thing has been taking up like all my brainspace sjdjdjdsjd
hopefully by the end it's as cool as I think it's gonna be :)
I really like imagining intros and stuff teehee. I also wanted to mess around with the various voices.
I'm still experimenting with the Taranza voice a bit, and I also wanted to try putting a bit of a filter on the Susie voice because why not. also showing off a bit of the Marx voice :)
funnily enough, Marx is the easiest of these three for me, simply because the voice I imagine for him is really easy for me to get into and doesn't have a lot of weird intonation. the one thing is I have to remember he barely uses contractions (I'm, you're, it'll), but other than that yeah. it's a lot more in the nasal range I think, that might be part of it.
Susie is the most difficult tone-wise. she's slightly robotic, but not too robotic, y'know? like the formality she has is easy enough, but it's trying to figure out that balance of having a bit more of a mechanical... honestly I don't know if it's tone or cadence or what but something. finding where she is on that sliding scale of robotic to human, if that makes sense? ngl the singular echo filter adds a LOT.
finally, Taranza. I'm still kinda trying to figure out his voice tbh. I have a general idea of what I want to go for (androgynous with a clear masc lean), it's getting there that's the hard part for me. I'm still working on it lol. beyond that, there is definitely formality too (at least in my head), but it's different from Susie's if that makes sense? like Susie is more formal in a very business, robotic-type style, while Taranza is more formal in a regal, "I have a reputation to maintain" type way ig? idk how to describe it but there's it there.
anyway, here's the voices as I can pull them off/as I can think of them rn :)
Thinking about how Sectonia’s pause screen mentions that she “seized control” of Floralia.
As in… she didn’t always have it? Was she not a queen before her corruption when she decided to take over? Was she originally just a figurehead with little real power? Did she appoint herself queen before her corruption King Dedede-style?
The mirror amplifies preexisting negative traits from my understanding, so having her be someone brazen enough to just say “I’m the queen now and you all have deal with it” even before her corruption or fairly early into it is kind of an intriguing idea to me. (Plus giving her parallels to Dedede just Feels Right. She already has her own Waddle Dees)
or maybe this is just a weird product of the translation. But it’s fun to think about.
So is the fact that Sectonia’s (and by extension, Taranza’s) species is apparently parasitic? And leeching power from others is how they survive?
That’s really cool. Kind of adds an extra layer to Taranza’s whole puppeteer thing. And it makes phrasing that Sectonia “bewitched” him potentially literal. Not that he wouldn’t do absolutely anything for her anyway. But that might be part of why he didn’t realize how far gone she was.
wanted to post a little teaser thing so y'all know I'm still alive and working on this and also I really like this design for part of Crowned Taranza phase 2 (which does have an actual name but I want to properly reveal it with the design).
the linearting isn't done yet, as you can see, and I'm not quite sure what style of claws I want for this, but the thing beneath is pretty final. I'm totally sacrificing speculative functionality for the bit but I promise the bit is (in my opinion) cool as FUCK! in the meantime I wanna talk a bit about the design of this part alone because I may not be done but I must YAP.
so the central thing you'll probably see is the outwards-facing triangle. with how the design is gonna be, when all of the pieces are in place, it's going to form something similar to the like magic circle cuff pattern on phase 2 Magolor's wrists. except it's around Taranza's body, really meant to both incorporate that motif and also show just how trapped he is by the Master Crown in that moment.
another thing (and this was a happy little accident) is the larger shape on the petal thing. initially I put those curved lines as a pattern so that when it all came together, it would make a spiderweb shape surrounding Taranza in the center (again alluding to how trapped he is as well as a piece of irony, the spider in the spider's web). HOWEVER later on I noticed that, combined with the shape, it makes a pattern of an upside down heart! and a really good one too like on god I did not expect it to be that clean. but anyway it fits so well with the motivations of why Taranza took and rebuilt the Master Crown in this sort of storyline arc thing and it was a complete accident. we love happy accidents yippee!!!
something I see a lot of people forgetting is that Sectonia had countless hosts before the wasp form we see in-game. so many, she's forgotten her true form.
I take it to mean countless bodies she's snatched, because it makes sense in my brain that yeah, in her search for true beauty, she would go through a lot of forms.
the pause screen lore of Sectonia DX also says she became obsessed with delusions of grandeur, which leads into another really interesting idea I had: what if Sectonia took over Floralia by force via taking the form of its actual queen?
as far as I know there's nothing to disprove it and I think it's really cool :)
"To have power over life and death, even if only for a moment..."
I wanted to share my take on Crowned Taranza :) Image without text and more info under cut!
with and without fancy lighting. the overlay adds so much sauce on god
you can really tell hands are the BANE of my existence lmao
Anyway, Crowned Taranza. This is largely like an idea/storyline of mine, in which Taranza rebuilds the Master Crown in hopes of using it to “bring Joronia's spirit back long enough to finally say goodbye” “Make things right, and truly reverse my mistake.”
Originally the design was going to have a color palette much more similar to Taranza's actual color palette, but I really wanted to keep the pink/purple magic to draw some connections to Sectonia, so I decided to make an almost completely different color palette.
Speaking of, you can probably tell there's more than just that from the Sectonia inspiration! One of the headcanons I have surrounding the Master Crown is that it's at least sentient enough to start preying on the bearer's worst moments, thoughts, and insecurities. Twisting Taranza's body to take after Sectonia is the tip of the iceberg here. I already have ideas for the second form lol.
As for this, you may notice how he does have strings going to the Master Crown. That's part of his plan to try and keep control of it, as he knows a little bit about the Crown's more...malicious properties. Unfortunately for him, he vastly underestimates the will of that thing, and that plan backfires spectacularly. Puppeteer gets puppeted.
Also yes, I used his Guest Star pause screen quote :) It fits so well with the mentality he has when he puts the Master Crown on. A miracle will happen, because he will make it happen. For sure.
Feel free to ask me anything about this little storyline of mine (unless it's spoilers for you. you know who you are)! A little more will come with another post because I'm totally drawing a sort of "phase 2" type thing (think like Magolor Soul), but I'd love to yap more about this in the meantime! This little thing has been cooking in my brain and I wanna share it :) hell I might even make some mini comics out of it or write it up as a full sort of story later
finally, for fun, here's how long the whole process of drawing this took. this is in hours. I'm gonna look back at the speedpaint of this Ibis Paint X gives me and be like "damn" lmao
so I've had this idea for a little project and you can probably guess just from listening lol
this is a very rough like. first teaser thing I guess? literally just a small part of it, and probably the part that's changed the most since I started working on this like a month ago. but this is probably the best it's sounded since I started working on this and I like this bridge rn :)
random little thing because I think about this a lot.
if Sectonia is associated with a full moon (like in the background of her bossfight), I think of Taranza as being associated with the crescent moon.
I'm not 100% sure why I think like this. maybe it's because of how much he wants the past back, as if a piece of him is missing. maybe because he's more of a side force, the one mostly in shadow while the full moon is a shining spotlight. maybe because he's still in her shadow, even now, with his inclusion in Air Riders and I think a mask in Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe probably the only times I can think of that he's not there alongside some reminder of who he lost.
maybe I'm just overthinking my own brain and I just like the idea of Taranza being associated with the crescent moon idk
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