The Underground Princess

Set in an underground chamber of damp rock, this painting is fairly
brightly lit for being set in the undervault. There is only one possible
subject for this painting- a Kephera princess with her head half-turned
away, golden antennae apparently having sensed something that demands
attention. Bright blue compound eyes are set in a face that at first
appears to be black as night, but the sheen of light coming from off to
the side reveals that it's a very dark green, with bare hints of other
colors within. Below the neck- and the fierce mandibles that appear
ready to shred anything that dares come close- the color scheme is an
entirely different story. Much of her carapace is a swirl of blues and
purples- not in any chaotic fashion, but rather from iridescence, with
the colors carefully chosen to reflect the oil-spill nature of the
coloration, a strange effect having been applied to the tints here to
make the exact colors that are seen dependent on the lighting and the
angle that the painting is viewed from. The parts of her thorax that do
not match this scheme are stripes of gold, highlighting certain seams
along her carapace. Her arms- all four of them-do not carry out this
pattern, rather matching her head's coloration. Upper arms on all four
limbs are golden, with an abrupt shift to the dark almost-black green
for the forearms and hands, including sleek spikes near the elbows,
before becoming gold again for each of her fingers. Unlike her arms, the
princess's legs follow more the color scheme of her torso, with the
carapace along her thighs that same iridescent sheen of purples and
blues, while below that, shins and calves are the dark green of her
head. Terminating each leg is a set of dual toes that are held almost
together, in the same gold as her antennae and fingers. The princess's
abdomen is, however, the brightest spot of them all. Precisely the same
color as her eyes, her abdomen is somewhat more petite than what one
would expect to see on a Hive Queen, though it seems to glow with latent
psionic power.