Infernus: The Soldier's Mural
EIGHT MONTHS since my last drawing, eight months since I posted art here, eight months since I revised this websi-- wait, that was two months ago! Man, time flies; So much has happened over the past eight months that no amount of excuses can justify my absense. Long story short, real life got busier, I found more satisfaction in writing, I hate the direction Twitter is taking, and my work/life balance was terrible.
I think the pandemic spoiled me; lockdown and the years that followed made me believe that I had all the time in the world, that I was unstoppable, but 2022 was my wake-up call. I can't sit at my desk with my iPad and draw the day away, I have work to do; I'm a student, I have a part-time job (as of February 2023), and I let social media get to me. I was so wrapped up in social media that it left me with severe burnout that lasted for months. I wrote down every idea I had in a journal, hoping that I'd draw or write it out when I had time, but I never did.
Inspiration finally struck in October, when I reviewed the notes I wrote down, finding that I wrote lore for numerous characters which I've only drawn once, with their concepts being almost two years old, or characters I've never drawn at all. I was astonished, as all these tertiary characters were close to the main characters I've drawn here, but their presence/impact was nonexistant. I had to rectify this, combining a "mural poster" idea I had with the passion to design/redesign members of the SPACE cast. This led to the creation of two new characters while redesigning the other three, with a framework that allowed me to show all of them at once.
Before I discuss the redesigned cast, I want to start with the newcomers for this piece: In the back row, standing loud and proud, Sledge and Smokey. Sledge was a tough nut to crack, as I thought to myself "how can I make a blacksmith intimidating without giving them the face of a thug nor a violent temper?" My solution to this was giving Sledge a welding mask to limit his facial expressions, reflecting his past through battle scars, and making him unusually stoic. Sometimes, the scariest thing about a person is being unable to read them; we study people's faces before studying their body language, so by making his nuances subtle to the point of nonexistance, it makes him appear more threatening than he actually is, especially considering that he's about 7 feet tall (213 cm).
Smokey is harder to see, but my notes for him predate Sledge by nearly a year. I envisioned him as Pyro's first friend, someone who could always make him laugh and keep Pyro's spirits up, but he has a penchant for jokes, especially with his unique abilities. Smokey has a ninja motif, but he embodies the drawbacks of invisibility in fiction. I've researched the subject enough to know that invisible and intagible aren't the same, and that the eyes must be visible when the body is invisible, as total invisibility leads to blindness. I'll write more about Smokey's powers when I draw him again, as I've written a lot for this entry already.
This piece also gave me the opportunity to redesign Molo, Ember, and Pyro. Ember and Pyro didn't change much, with the former receiving a new kimono design and minor retouches while the latter received a significant overhaul since his last appearance in-uniform. His 2021 drawings made him more expressive and personable, but outside of giving a gradient to his uniform and retouching his scar, he was tweaked to better suit my current style.
On the contrary, Molo was the one who needed a redesign the most. Her 2021 design has many elements which I find undesirable today, such as her strawberry blond hair and white sclera. Outside of her body structure, everything about her changed; her color palette has been completely redone, her star tattoo has been removed, her fingerless gloves were replaced with claw-like nails, her shirt no longer has a cleavage window, she wears a tattered cardigan, all her teeth are sharp rather than just a few, her sclerae are yellow instead of white, and she now wears a choker with her star emblem on it.
Despite how long this took, it was a lot of fun to do, and I have ideas for similar group portraits in the future. I don't know if I'll do all of them as there are at least six more ideas I wrote down, but if I can manage my time right (and possibly design the newcomers prior to establishing the layout) maybe they won't take as long. Hopefully this piece is a sign of more art to come this year, as I want to draw more, but time management is my greatest weakness.
That said, this piece was a gargantuan effort, so I may take a breather and work on smaller pieces before drawing something of this scale again. Hopefully, for whatever comes next, it will be something that will make you smile, as completing this certainly put a smile on my face.