A bit of a different one, so we’ll see if this is something people would actually like to adopt. ^^ Instead of a single character, I decided to design an entire changeling hive. So despite the amount of changelings here, it’s just one adoptable this time.
 
First, I’m just gonna explain what exactly you’re looking at here, because it’s very cluttered and confusing.
 
Right, so in the show, we can see several different types of changelings -with/without horns and wings, different shells etc. which sort of could map on to how ants and bees work -in a honeybee hive have a queen, workers and drones, while with ants there’s often workers, soldiers, sometimes drones and (a) queen(s). So decided to roll with that, and made designs for a “queen” and how a typical worker, drone and soldier could look + an example egg and larvae.
 
Please note that these are just average individuals, made to exemplify an entire type of changeling, to show what the body-shape is in general of that type. Since the colors of changelings in the show vary (even when they have the same appearence and can be assumed to be of the same type), to the left of each example I’ve made color-keys for what colors their armor and body can appear in. To the right is a color-key for that specific individual, in case you wish to draw/use them in particular.
 
The exception being the egg/larvae and the monarch. The egg/larvae have a shiny shell/covering/thing, which is the color of their future armor and have the same face-color as their future adult form’s body. The monarch (not queen, since Thorax has shown they can be male) is just the one (unless you decide to make more) and has a color-key for their design beside them.
 
The wings (of all which has wings i.e. everyone but the soldiers and larvae), are also shown next to them. And at the top I made a quick idea for what their hive could look like.
 
(Now, this plays a lot into my headcanons for changelings, but the winner can always alter it and use the designs here in some other way/context. ^^)
 
The Caramel Hive
 
Raffle end: December 20, 22:00 CET
 
Design explanation: Knäck (A type of caramel/toffee/butterscotch with pieces of almonds in it)
 
Right, so knäck (literally meaning “break”, “crack” or “snap”) is a candy thats made with cream, sugar, and light syrup (not maple syrup, it’s apparently more like molasses or golden syrup?) with pieces of almond in. It’s heated up and poured into small paper/metal foil forms (whose shape you can see from the color-keys). They range from really light yellow-ish to dark-almost-black brown, and from soft and chewy, to teeth-pullers, to hard candy. It’s up to preference.
 
The reason I made changelings, where… well, first I tried to make just a pony. I thought about how to reference the almonds, and were considering using freckles (shocking), when I suddenly remebered that changelings have these gem-things embedded in the front of their chests. And then I thought that changelings probably have an exoskeleton, and those are often very shiny… just like knäck is. And then I was hooked on this design idea.
 
Let’s start with the egg/larvae as they’re the excpetion and not based on knäck. The egg references chocolate eggs, with their shiny foil. It’s probably a bit more easter, but it fit so meh. The larvae is just based wrapped hard candy -the ears and tail looks like the wrapped ends.
 
Now, as for the worker/drone and soldier. As I mentioned, the embedded gem-things represent almonds, and I drew the rest of them extra shiny to because of how shiny the candy is. Their horns are support to remind of reindeer horns, and their armor references the paper/foil forms of the candy. The most common pattern on the paper forms we used to buy, where red/green/blue… stars. They were stars. But that looked a bit too…artificial? So I made the worker’s armor those colors with dots instead, to also reference ladybugs and such. They also came in those colors but solid, hence the soldier’s armor. The drone’s armor looks more like the metal foil forms.
 
The soldier lacks the gem-things, partially to reference how you often find knäck without almonds (especially in schools, where nuts and such often are forbidden) and to differentiate a bit more. That’s also why I made all the colors the way they are, to differentiate. Workers and Soldiers are more “common” so to speak, so they come in more colors, but have less options for armor-colors. Drones are more “fancy” so that have more armor-color options, but come in darker shades (because I think it looks more “regal”). Their gem-things also line up to hint at a crown and necklace. They don’t have a horn because bee-drones don’t have stingers.
 
The soldiers don’t have wings and a larger horn because they’re supposed to look sturdier and more armored. The drones have larger wings than the workers, because bee-drones have very large wings. The wings and tails are light yellow-brown and see through, because they’re supposed to look like if you take soft knäck and strech it out into a thin film. That’s also why the monarch’s wing has that extra swirl-thing, to sort of look like knäck that has been streched until it broke off. Their wings also more resemble bird-wings in their shape, to give a more fantasy-mystical feel to them.
 
Speaking of the monarch. Their armor is white because it looks good color-wise and to differentiate between them and the others. Their gem-things also line up to hint at a crown and neclace. Their body-shape resembles a deer and they have reindeer horns, to give a more christmas-y vibe. Their segmented legs end in a pseudo-shoe, and their colors vary from dark brown to light brown-ish yellow to hint at the appearence of golden jewlery where the gem-things are actual inlaid gems.
 
And lastly, as far as I can remember, the hive at the top is supposed to look like raw sugar crystals, because I though’d it’d be fun and fitting.
 
…I had a lot of thoughts about these designs, so I probably forgot something, but this has to end someplace Feel free to ask if you have questions.