Author notes

Cover 9: "Aiorema"

dragonsong12

on Oct. 5, 2008

Chapter nine! This cover features Ser-den.
For some reason, I had this image in my head from the start, of having him here with a big cat. A panther was actually my first choice, but I wanted to make sure that it fit with his character. When I actually started looking into medieval symbolism for big cats though, all of them were negative except for two, the lion and the panther. The lion was obvious as bravery and nobility, but neither of those really fit Ser-den. (He's brave, but that's not a distinguishing feature). The problem with the panther, however, was that every symbolic meaning I could find for it was religious in nature. And unless I wanted to portray Ser-den as being Jesus (haha!), it wasn't going to work. But one bestiary I read had a simple description of the panther's demeanor without any religious attachment and finally it seemed to fit.
Which I was really happy about, because although the boetheri as a whole don't seem representative of any specific animals for me, I've always associated Ser-den with a panther - mostly because when I was initially designing him, he was based on Panthro, who is arguably the most awesome of Thundercats. (He was always my favorite character in that XD)

I tried a new coloring technique on this that I stole from a far more talented artist. I like the painterly aspect of it, but it doesn't look quite as good as it could. Still, not bad for a first try on it.

The title is another theatre term, like the last one was. Aiorema: Stage machinery used in ancient Greek theatre for appearances of gods. Seemed fitting to the subject.

Thanks for reading! See you next week!