mikechiltons

[mikechiltons]

lined smth a while ago, hopefully i get to render it soon

[mikechiltons]

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Got a lot of extra space in here…

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[mikechiltons]

Various character designs by Mark Ingram.

[mikechiltons]

[mikechiltons]

"Why don't you just stay up here?"

[mikechiltons]

okay but can we just take a minute to talk about how Skylark Motel is made of giant trees?

Really just the two giant trees, but if you look at all the interior shots, you see that all the rooms have those branches/roots breaking through them- and in some places, they’re incorporated as part of the interior design, like the bar in Rayon’s sitting area.

A lot of Motorcity is uninhabited wasteland: all those long, empty stretches of busted up freeways, miles and miles of junkyards, buried ruins like we see in Fight For Motorcity and Like Father, Like Daughter. Most of that wasteland predates Deluxe; whatever tore Michigan apart, it happened a long time ago. Long enough, maybe, for a tree to take root and take off.

Kane didn’t bother demolishing much when he started building Deluxe; at first, he just wanted to sweep the old Detroit under the rug, out of sight, out of mind. It wasn’t until he needed the resources and manpower buried under the rubble that he began rounding up the Motorcitizens and tearing down their homes. So instead of destroying those trees- which had been growing unhindered for over a century- he left them alone and raised Deluxe up well above the upper reaches of their canopies.

And trees that can grow in the pollution and wreckage that was Detroit for so long aren’t going to give a fuck if you cut off their sunlight; they just adjust to the gloom and keep growing. Maybe they put out fewer leaves, but there are still plenty of green branches. And when some kid from Motorcity came across the ruined motel sitting in the roots of those trees he decided it would be a perfect nest for him and his crew as they made a name for themselves in the new Motorcity, growing in the shadow of Deluxe. Rayon and his Skylarks fixed the place up- when they found it, it, those tree roots were the only thing holding up the walls. But they made sure to leave all the live roots intact, out of respect for their new home.

(The downside is that every spring they do have to be extra diligent about termites and other crawly things, but that’s a small price to pay- and the Skylark is still cleaner than 75% of the places you can stay in Motorcity, let’s be real here.)

[mikechiltons]

Guys. Chuck is one smooth operator. 

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