#hawktalon07

The requirements for the contest stipulated that the five main characters (Percy, Mockingbirdpaw, Crowheart, Ravenwing, and Tigerpaw) all be present, that all the relevant title information be included, that the first page of the comic be linked to in the description, and the proper size for the cover. I've done all of these - except I forgot about the size requirement for the cover until I was already a good way into the cover. As a result, the cover doesn't exactly fit any of the size dimmensions that Hawktalon laid out - but it is the same proportions as the 973x1180 px size option, and here is a version of the cover that is that size. I just wanted to include the larger size of the cover as well since I had to compress the image a bit for the smaller one. I tried to cram as much symbolism - and as many references to the comic's prophecy - as I could into this one cover. I'll list them below. I hope this doesn't come off as explaining too much or whatever, but I just wanted to show the thought I put into this, if that makes sense. > The cats are arranged in order of their allegiance to land verus sky - Percy is separated from the others by the mountains and is the highest in the image and the only one looking skyward, Tigerpaw is the separated from the others by the stream and is the furthest down on the image and is looking down, while the three half-blooded siblings are more centered in the image, with Ravenwing closer to the bottom of the page, Mockingbirdpaw closer to the top, and Crowheart in the center. > Crowheart has his head bowed with the shame of what he has done to Yinsoul and Yangspirit, but he is still holding the images of their spirits aloft with his wing, because despite his shame, he is still upholding his part in their prophecy. Percy is looking worriedly at the cats falling from the sky and the looming figure of Daedalus, both symbols of the ruin and corruption of his home. Mockingbirdpaw is flying near Percy, since they're friends, but still looking to her earth-bound siblings. Ravenwing is looking worriedly at Tigerpaw, since he seems to be taking all of this the hardest, and Tigerpaw is looking at the ground with an irritated expression, since he seems pretty angry about his home being invaded. The spirits of Yinsoul and Yangspirit are forming the Ying/Yang shape, because of course. > The winged cats falling through the sky (the things that look like shooting stars) represent the part of the prophecy "When the sky becomes the earth", since that's the event that the prophecy seems to refer to in that line. > All of the environments referred to in the prophecy are present in this image (not necessarily how they will appear in the comic itself, they're just representations of the prophecy's words rather than actual locations in the comic). The mountains represent the "stone," with their ice-capped tips the "ice", the forest on the hill below the mountains are the "forest", and the grass the cats are walking on is the "plain". > "Learning from a bitter leaf" - this one's a bit harder to spot, but if you look at the stream behind Tigerpaw, there are flowers floating in the water. These are the flowers of a real-life plant called the Bitter Leaf plant. I was gonna just have a bush of it growing where the cats were walking, but apparently they're only native to Africa. So just pretend someone's keeping a garden of non-native plants nearby and somehow some of them fell in the stream. > The clouds are formed in the dangerous, looming figure of Daedalus. The empty space the clouds are formed around is in the shape of Minos's throne (thus the "empty throne" the prophecy refers to.) Is Daedalus reaching greedily for the throne with his claws, to claim it for his own ends, or is he defending it with those claws as he claims he has been doing by invading the Clans? Only time, and further comic updates, will tell. > There are five mountain peaks visible in the image - but if you notice, they are sharply divided in the middle of the image with a sudden empty space between them (or "dead" space, if you will). This is both a reference to the warning to "divide or mend" in the prophecy, and the "die the heart of the five" since that dead space is in the center, or heart, of the mountain range (not to mention there's two dead spirit cats in that space). I think that's everything that I wanted to say. I hope you guys like this! I'm honestly really proud of how it turned out. I was originally going to have the title wrapping around the curve of Crowheart's wing and sort of forming a circle around him at the center of the image, but that would have ended up cutting off Mock and Raven's faces, so I had to improvise a bit with the placement of the title.  I think it actually looks pretty good where it is now, though. The purple sky and purple shading is for the purple sky from the original cover, and the purple shading that is often used in Clan territory (though now I'm wondering whether it's too much purple? not sure). I'm especially proud of how the falling cats and the Daedalus cloud turned out. I've never gotten clouds to look good before, but honestly, I think it turned out really good here.  I'm also really proud of all of the cats - except Tigerpaw, I couldn't seem to get him looking the way I wanted, and I completely started him over at one point, but I think he looks better now at least. I'm especially happy with Ravenwing's fur texture and shading, and Crowheart's wing.