#ngl I haven’t watched Steven Universe since middle school I think so I absolutely do not remember 90% of the lore behind corrupted gems

[puddleorganism]

@chrisrin’s gem au is consuming the life series fandom and I am not exempt. Enjoy a corrupted Tango

[image ID: a drawing of the aforementioned corrupted Tango. He is a wingless dragon-like creature that stands on all fours with claws on his forelegs and paws on his hind legs. He has a body shape somewhat similar to that of a wolf or a tiger, with broad shoulders and a big chest that tapers sharply just before the hind legs. He has bull-like horns on top of his head. His mouth has jagged edges comprised of sharp triangles meant to mimic big spooky fangs. He has overlapping diamond scales along his back, sides, hind legs, and tail. His tail is modeled after a pangolin, and is long and thick in width, but almost flat. Flying out/off of his mouth and neck are bright flames. He’s mostly red and orange with dark grey shoulders, scales, and horns. He’s got stylized stripes and spots all over him, but especially on his sides/ribs and arms. The scales along his spine and on his tail have single stripes on their inner edges, fading from dark red near his shoulders, down to orange, yellow, and then white at the top of his tail. /End ID]

Bonus rambling about my design Thoughts because I want to:

Honestly most of it is just looking at an animal and thinking “yeah that has Tango energy”; notably:

Pangolin (tail + scales)

Tiger (general body shape + stripes (and lil paws!!)

Bull (horns)

I also thought about adding some armadillo lizard in there? Because again,, the vibes - but honestly that’s pretty well covered with the pangolin lol

Most of his markings are also meant to mimic chrisrin’s design! I pretty much just slapped some extra stuff on top for the corruption, since carnelian can have little veins and spots in it sometimes. I honestly didn’t look at references for super long so they’re not super accurate to what those look like in the actual gemstone but whatever. They look cool. Also I gave him freckles because I can and they’re cute.

I changed the colors because, tbh, they clashed with the fire I drew LMAO. But! Also carnelian can be very orange and corruption changes the colors of gems sometimes anyway (if I remember right, at least).

I tried to mimic the au art style to an extent but I have never been good an mimicking styles lol so it didn’t exactly turn out. I don’t think it’s too far off though! Especially in the design itself. The big ol’ chompers is definitely su energy