I’m still working on Vestal Culture, but this sketch turned out so nice that I wanted to share. I fell upon a comic called Aqua Punk in November, and it inspired me to come up with ancient Vestal art. The doodles I did led to me developing traditional costumes with accompanying masks. The idea is, Vestals have a sort of flower language that was used for wall reliefs that depicted stories and historical events. Rather than writing text, the flowers and their positions explained the situation. Above, the two individuals are wearing modern costumes with traditionally crafted masks. The masks are meant to reflect the personal feelings and perspectives of the wearer without them speaking, as well as social status and/or lineage. These masks are simple, and really just depict which one is a liar, which is truthful, and which is the telepath and the telepath’s victim.
I actually fucked up the left guy...the flowers on the mask that exit the mouth are meant to match the flower helmet exactly. If the bouquet (flowers worn as a helmet or on the head at all) matches the spray (the flowers leaving the mouth opening as if it were words), then the individual is telling the truth/staying true to their perspective. Additional details would reveal if the individual is intentionally lying or if they were manipulated (sunflower lady is) or even lying to themselves about a personal truth. I wanted historic Vestal art to be concerned with the dramatic side of stories...like opera and such. Costuming would be more popular in modern day rather than ancient times, and would involve the fancy garb. In art, subjects would really just be flat silhouettes with highly detailed masks, bouquets, and sprays telling the story.
The funky eye also represents the involvement of a telepath, which is regarded as a hostile entity in Vestal culture (on account of telepaths messing with free will and privacy, of which Vestals are very private). The eye, which is called a “presence” in my notes, will appear in the bouquet of a person under the sway of a telepath. A Presence located on a mask marks a telepath, but there may only be one eye, not two. Two eyes on a mask denote a hyper-vigilant or paranoid person. The single eye was intended to give a sly attitude, which correlates with the negative opinion telepaths are held in.
I’m trying to work on a chronology of concepts I want to reveal here so I don’t just drop walls of lore to explain a pic I did two months ago. I also need to plan out tags I’ll use so y’all can look stuff up easily that will eventually get buried.