#and also to work in some Herrscher of the Void battlesuit elements too

[herrscherofmagic]

Thank you!! ^.^

I read this way earlier today, like 12+ hours ago, but I wasn't sure how to respond at the time so I thought it over throughout the day and I'm sharing my thoughts in reply now. I've also added some extra tidbits of "lore" in the tags :)

@ the preservation stelle sketch, it's already a solid composition because it's a frame from her ultimate animation, so it's super dynamic w/ its movement. The lighting is also pretty strong and I emphasized it with the line sketch I added atop the color sketch, using an eraser to draw in light lines on the lit-up sides of forms and then using the brush tool to draw in dark lines on the shadowed sides of forms.

and "shapely" is an oddly appropriate way to describe these sketches! lol

I hadn't really thought of them in that way before, but it does make sense tbh. I tend to draw my value & color sketches primarily with a large fixed-size solid rectangular brush, blocking in the major values & hues first. Then I refine the shapes and forms using thin lines and then a pressure-sensitive variable size solid round brush!

Since most of these sketches are in the "line atop the blocked-in colors" phase or just the "blocked-in colors" phase, that means they're chock full of big blocky shapes since I can't get any fine detail w/ that rectangular brush x-x

you mentioning the "pop of orange" also made me realize just how well it works as an accenting color for the Valkyrie HoV design! I didn't quite have that intention per se, I chose orange because it's already associated w/ HoV via her eyes and her void powers, but even w/o that it works quite well. I might have to try and brainstorm some better ways to incorporate that color into the design, though I might save most of the orange accenting for the alt outfit (the bottom-right one in the last page, that's primarily white & black)

Sketch dump time!

Collection of WIP studies (except for the last one, which is less of a study but still heavily referenced lol)

[busghost]

there's probably nothing for it, but I'll ask just to be sure - are there any written down/mentioned characteristics of herrscher's wings? the only one I remember was in St. Freya High manga when Himeko was discussing with Theresa how the hell Kiana even managed to touch Mei's wings, thus neutralising the herrscher, since they're insanely hot

This is much more theorizing than actually answering with sources. As you said, the only source for what’s up with Herrscher wings is what Himeko says,

“... pure, raging insanely hot, unstoppable runaway honkai energy”

and that she took out the Third Herrscher by taking out her wings.

Practically speaking, when the Herrschers have their glowing bits (wings, eyes, horns, etc.) it's a signal to the audience that the character is harnessing their Herrscher powers to their full extent. Kiana and Bronya are still Herrschers even when they aren’t glowing. But that’s a boring explanation and the first few manga chapters contradict canon sometimes. So let’s look way too far into this!

Theresa does say that it’s because she’s a Kaslana she was able to do that, cause Kaslanas are extremely resistant to honkai energy. We, however, have more knowledge than Theresa does at that moment in time we know that Kiana is the Herrscher of the Void.

With that in mind, if you look at how weak Mei’s first awakening as a herrscher was maybe Kiana just being there she unknowingly took some of the Honkai energy intended for Mei. Maybe when she touched Mei’s wings she just drained her honkai energy? She does have the Herrscher working against her in her own mind and when the honkai bomb went off over ARC City she absorbed nearly all the honkai energy.

Are the wings where the honkai is stored? Probably not cause we see other Herrschers do plenty of funky stuff without wings or glowing bits (see, every Herrscher of Reason) and we’re told that their power comes from the Herrscher’s core’s connection to imaginary space.

Something to note is that the wings can be interacted with as Kiana does rip the wings from Mei. However in Lament of the Fallen Mei’s hair goes through her horns as if they aren’t there. Her horns are also see through like Herrscher wings.

The 4th Generation Godsbane battlesuits also have some herrscher-like elements, for example Knight Moonbeam wings can be grabbed as Kiana does just that in the Anti-Entropy Invasion manga. Also Vermilion Knight spews fire out the back like wings in Final Lesson. Fu Hua’s new evil getup looks to be overflowing with honkai energy as well.

The Will of the Honkai/ God really does go for the Aesthetic and gives the Herrschers really pretty dresses and such so why not give them wings for the cool factor? If you’re bringing about the apocalypse you may as well be serving looks at the same time. Even the zombies don’t look all that bad.

Uuuhhhhhh. There is no “In conclusion”, I’m shouting theories/ideas out there and seeing what y’all think of them.