Art Post: Righteous Fury

Having just mugged the pastor in the parking lot of the church, the pair of miscreants found a set of keys and decided to clean out the church as well. This is an easy target, all the sound equipment alone will set them up for at least two weeks. Loading the truck with the last piece of pawn worthy stuff, they jump in to drive away, but something is amiss. A sword is currently stabbed directly through the hood. It's buried up to the hilt going clean through the engine block. "What the hell?" The driver jumps out to fix this. Just then a person lands directly beside their truck and rips the sword out. He already has a second sword. On his back are a set of brilliant white wings, and his face written in wrath. The burglar stumbles back, "Oh dear god, are you...an angel?" The warrior points his blade at them, "No, just a hero, an angel wouldn't think of doing what I'm about to do to you."

This painting has a little bit of a story behind it. As you can tell, the painting above and the card art below are slightly different due to size. This painting was done about year prior to it's use in Heroes Rising. My mother was teaching a ladies Bible study. In it they discussed the image of the angelic being according to the Scriptures. They had some diagrams of what an angel really looked like in alignment with biblical description. She asked me to paint what the world often views an angel to be. These are two different images. A biblical angel is frightening, while the world likes to view them as sexy, fearsome warriors. I went all out on painting this one, having fun throwing in all the cliche' I could find. In the end, though, I found I really liked the outcome as a painting goes. Though it isn't biblical, it could work as a fantasy or sci-fi image. Thus, when Nick asked me about some of my older paintings that might work in-game, I offered up this one. Since there are angelic beings in the game and some of the avatar items are angel wings, this felt like a good fit for Heroes Rising.

About the art: As I said, this was my take on the general view of angels. To be blunt, I purposed this to be half naked simply because the world often views angels as hyper sexy. This allowed me to really play with skin tones and shading. The human form is one of my strong suits in art, so this wasn't a stretch. The wings were a little more difficult, at the time I had only done a few wings and really wanted these to stand out and look good. Wings aren't easy, but after a few tries I think they came out nice. His face, hair, and general skin tone I used Mediterranean palate. This was to lean toward the Romanticized Italian Renaissance view of angelic beings. His outfit was easy enough, I used a model for this who was wearing something similar, and I wanted it to appear pseudo-Roman, since for some reason people often see warrior angels in Roman or Greek garb. The fun part for me in working with this were the swords. I am still working on perfecting metalic surfaces, especially highly reflective ones. I spent a LOT of time focusing on those sword, especially the one he is holding behind himself. I had to give it a mild reflection, which required a lot of attention to minor detail. The overall color scheme is natural tones that are slightly muted. This was a final choice to make him not seem too "heavenly", as I did have plans to use this art in other non-religious settings, which worked out for Heroes Rising.

I hope you enjoy the art and the power card, it was a challenge to create and I feel that I succeeded in my attempt.