Art Post : A bit of Angst

Forsaken (live) - Skillet

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MCU Samuel Sterns / The Leader (Captain America Brave New World)

"Why do I have to beg

When all it's left is a memory

Forsaken

Why do I have to beg

When all it's left is a memory

Forsaken

Forsaken

Forsaken

Forsaken

Forsaken

Forsaken"

New art post, a lil' bit of angst with this one haha.

Honestly the main reason I drew this was because I wanted to draw his morphology and his arm (in my imagination his right arm is burnt by gamma injections).

So let's dive in and talk about it a lil bit!

I tried to be kind of respectful to Tim's body but it's complicated 'cause unlike Mark Ruffalo there's barely any pic of him shirtless and it's not something that happens that much in movies either, so I used the poster for Bang Bang for that and what you can guess through his outifts.

Tim lended his voice, his face, his mimics but also his body to Sam, so even if I wanted to change Sam's body to make it matches his own life and history, I kept that in mind and still tried to be somewhat close enough to his actor's body.

And it's fucking HARD but I think it's an ok enough job I did here, I hope at least lol.

I will change it anyway because I want to add way more scars in his whole body. I want his body to look as damaged as his head and mind, to be the reflect of the darkness in his heart. I want people to look at him and feel incredibly grossed out at the idea of all the shit he endured but also at his dehumanization. 'Cause that's the interesting thing with this Sam, how human he is behind this dehumanization, how he suffers both physically and mentally.

Also because Sam is inspired by monsters, Frankenstein story for exemple (like Hulk), that's why I gave comics Sam scars and I think it's only relevant to add some to MCU Sam, along with a somewhat zombie-ish body reflecting the malnutrition (because there's no way he properly ate during these 16 years).

I don't know how yet, I made a quick doodle to start to figure that out.

But I'm not satisfied with that yet. Though I do like the idea of a scar on his spine and something similar to a heart surgery scar. As I said in another post, there's not only an electric torture chair in his prison, there's also torture "beds" so you can assume he went through way more than just gamma injections. Maybe he was even "opened" just to study him, like some kind of Roswell alien. After all, Ross' goal was to make more gamma folks, not just enhancing Sam's.

So of course I kept the burnt arm and I gotta figure everything else out. I also added scars on his left wrist because I don't think you can survive 16 years of total isolation from people and sunlight and torture and humiliation and dehumanization and shit without trying to "escape" life, in a way or another. Maybe that's one of the few reason he had people watching him 24/24 (this and him being dangerous af, of course).

Maybe he would do surgery on himself too, given how twisted his face is, maybe he had to "fix" himself a few time when the gamma poisonned him. Organs dying and shit like that.

Bruce did mentionned in She-Hulk that the gamma they were exposed to was deadly unless you had the genetic to survive it. Bruce and Jen are totally "fine" with it, unlike Sam who seems visibly "damaged". Blonsky got an (incomplet) Super Soldier serum, giving him an healing Factory and I suppose it helped him survive it (but he's still way more difformed and out of control, because it's incomplet) and Sam has nothing but he does have a gamma brain that could figure out how to save Ross' life, so certainly that would be enough for him to figure out how to stay alive. It would even kinda be comics accurate, in the way that unlike Bruce, Sam "died" from gamma poisonning a few time (he saved himself but he was dying a few times).

And yes, I know what I just said about him escaping life so why would he try to save himself and fix his damaged body? Well if you ever lived through a suicidal crisis (which I hope you didn't) you will understand why. A suicidal person is conflicted about their will to live and their need to die, it's not uncommon nor weird to think Sam would do that too.

I had absolutly no idea in mind when I drew this other than drawing his arm, as I said, so I didn't think anything prior to the art, it happened.

That's something I wanted to talk about when I realized the length of my previous art post. Because after re-read it, I realized how "scary" it can be for people who are learning to draw to see all the things I think about and so ipso facto all the things they need to think about.

When I started archery, I felt this way. The first thing my coach (may he be at peace now) told us is how many things you need to check to properly shot one arrow. Your posture, the way you hold your bow, the way you pull the string, where to stand, how your feet should be, how your hands should be, how to breath, etc... and it gave me vertigo just THINKING about it. But that's the thing. he also taught us that all these things will become reflex at some point and you wouldn't even notice you're thinking it anymore.

Well, it's the same thing when you draw. At some point thinking all these things will become a mere reflex once you're used to think about it. Which makes it hard when I want to explain my process, because for me it's just a reflex. Using this color rather than this one is a reflex, doing this pose rather than another one is a reflex etc etc...

So I didn't really think this art, it was a reflex.

Hidding his face in the shadow to make him creepier and also making a callback to the movie. Adding green tears similar to blood to his wounded white eye, as a remain of his humanity. The lifeless posture, the colors, it all came out by itself.

Some of you noticed it because it's not subtil but yes, that's a fallen angel. The blue halo behind his head is not just a way to make his dark face more visible and so more threatening but it's also a way to 1) make a callback to his Mister Blue name and the music he uses to mind control people (thus around the head and not somewhere else) 2) giving an angel halo 3) giving him that kind of "brain power" aura as well. The red behind him that looks like blood dripping are his wings. Making it red is a callback to 1) his prison (so his pain), 2) blood, obviously 3) danger. Red is a color for danger and violence.

And of course the end of the wings looking like blood dripping also serve the purpose of making his wings kind of damaged (it's a fallen angel we have here, so his wings are damaged) and blood illusion that gives it a sinister angst aura. I also wanted the halo + wings combo to look like a church window.

The green tears are here to make him 1) bloody (but in a gamma way), so wounded but also scary, it's always threatening to see someone standing so normal while being covered in blood 2) looking like tears. MCU Sam doesn't accept his destiny or bless it, like his comics self, he curses it, he suffers it. And I hope it will remain this way if we ever see him again, I like it, it gives him a way sadder and interesting destiny. I like to see his gamma eye as his "monster" heartless side. His anger, his ressent, his violence, his manipulative gamma brain. And I like to see his blind eye as the remain of his humanity, his regrets, his feelings, his sadness, his broken heart.

And then the text are just things he says in the movie "I wanted my life back" in his wings and halo, so the remaining of his previous life, like a fallen angel carrying the broken wings of another life and "but it's too late for that now" in a bloody way born of his dripping wings to make it looks like the threat it was but also his inevitable faith.

I added an extra circle in his eye also

It's something you will often see in medias and other people's arts because it gives this kind of "uncomfortable" vibe, especially when the eye is wild open like this on a face you cannot see and so an emotion you cannot read. It's an important code in horror (and erotism lol), hidding, suggesting rather than showing because if people have to think it, it will be way scarier (or more arousing, depending on the context and your kinks I guess).

Sam (in both comics and MCU) is someone who gets carried away by his emotions, he doesn't control them, they happen and he suffers them in a way that it feels like he is "possessed" by them, they take the best out of him (and again, I hope it will stay this way).

In this other fanart, for exemple, I gave him the extra circle too because he can't control his sadness. It doesn't necessarly have to be a brutal explosion of emotion and anger, it doesn't have to be threatening. It's just about him losing control over his emotion and breaking his emotionless mask.

In the movie, Sam's emotion and his lost of control are very visible through Tim's voice (the perfect exemple of that is the phone call during the flight battle because it's the most obvious, from his calm low voice to his higher quicker excited speech).

He can't help it, he can't control it. And I can't show that through a voice, obviously, so I'm showing it the only way I can, through lines.

Because lines, too, can be talkative.

I'm known for my colors but also my very clean lines. That's why here I did the opposite and gave him these very rought "sketch-like" lines. Very bold, undisciplined. Chaotic. Because that's the mood, chaos. I added these glitches in the colors as well for that.

It took me less than 2 hours to draw it. I'm not saying this to brag but rather to explain how these symbolisms just automatically come up in your mind when you're used to draw.

It's important to keep in mind these little to no effort arts are born of hours and days of researches from other arts and compositions. Learning is the only way to get these reflexes. But learning take time and pedagogy. If you want to learn and to be able to think fast when you draw then you gotta first give yourself the time, the patience and the kindness to learn.

I've been drawing almost everyday for almost 6 years now. Not because I wanted to be the best, not because I wanted to be good, but because I like it. Because it's a hobby and a passion. Because it makes me feel good.

Because it's not about being good, it's about feeling good and you don't need to have any skill for that.

And sure, yeah, I'm an overworking beast and a perfectionist machine so of course I try to improve, saying otherwise would be a lie. But it's not why I draw, I drew before I started developping skills and I always drew with the same love and care, no matter if it looked good or not. No matter if it's an unfinished ugly doodle or a whole-ass piece that took me weeks. I learnt because I was curious, not because I wanted to be good. Before it was my job, it was and still is my passion but also a hobby. And a hobby doesn't require to be good to enjoy it. The only way to become good at something is to practice and to keep practicing you gotta enjoy it first. If the endgame is only to be good then you'll stop before you even start.

Enjoy~