The brief was the village alarm clock, scaled up to a single icon. The rooster is a gift to Gond: every part wants a different in-fill — teardrop feathers on the body, crescent-scales on the breast, a pointed-cell comb, and that magnificent sickle tail begging to be drawn as long banded blades. So the bird stands mid-crow at the centre, beak open, on a grass mound of blade-rows, with a marigold sun throwing dotted rays to make the time of day unmistakable. The supporting cast is small on purpose — a berried tree with a perched parrot, three birds skimming the top, a little hen below — so the eye stays on the crow. Keeping it medium-light is the whole game: the dark blue dawn ground breathes around the bird so the colour of that tail lands like a sound.