More visions of irid'An

In the past few weeks I've found myself with a lot of extra time for doing art and things, so I figured I'd compile another art post. Today we're looking at irid'An some more!

An important development in irid'An's design is the presence of these volcanic hot springs down in the calderas of some islands. I'm envisioning something sort of like if you took Yellowstone's springs and geysers and transplanted them onto Hawaii. I've kept the idea of boardwalks bridging across some of the thinner crust around these springs, and in some cases even over the water itself. Of course, Yellowstone's "water features" are incredibly dangerous, so on irid'An these sorts of features would only be built where the water temperature allows.

In any case, I love this vision of thriving, bustling marketplaces and such all clustered down in the caldera floor, with lush environments fed by these springs and all sorts of rich cultural settings to be had. Further up the crater rim are the gleaming idyllic cities, home to corporate headquarters, political offices, and rich housing, elevated far above the common people.

Not too much to see here, other than another concept of an island with this central hot springs caldera complex. In this case the heated water outflows into the sea. I've used a rich, reddish-orange color for the soil around the springs, which in Yellowstone's case is the result of microorganisms living in the water. Since these worlds have already been colonized in advance by our own Earthly fauna, we're probably seeing something similar. In the background is not a moon, but another world - pr'Sefone, I suspect. The Rosa system is densely packed, much like the TRAPPIST-1 system, so the other worlds might appear quite conspicuous in the sky.

I'm pretty proud of this one, depite its odd framing (I don't always consider how I'll need to capture the artwork later while I'm making it). This is the logical extension of the previous image, showing an entire atoll of these small islands, and a thriving city distributed among them. This might be the kind of environment I'd like to see for the world's capital. One of the hot springs is under the sea here, creating an effect alarmingly similar to that seen in Shin Godzilla. Hopefully he's not hiding down there.

Finally, something more like a doodle - by now the vision of these islands is well-established, so here we have a ground effect passenger liner crudely rendered on its way towards one of the islands. Although many have steep cliffs rising from the sea (making airships a convenient alternative), this island has a gentle enough grade to permit a busy port to be constructed at the shoreline, reminiscent of Orus. 

That's all I have for now, but I'm happy with the consistent aesthetic I've been able to develop for this world. irid'An has historically been underdeveloped in my brain, which is ironic since it's the most well-developed world in the canon of the story. Hopefully these paintings help to do it justice!