Art Post - Ghoul-ish vampire MCU Sam

Phantom Manor Graveyard Jazz - Disneyland Paris

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MCU Samuel Sterns / The Leader

It's Spooky Month, so have a ghoul-ish vampire! I can already tell it's gonna be one of my fav art of the year (and one of my fav overall). I really like the vibe I gave him. At first I corrected all the mistakes. The too long feet, the too bended thigh, the broken left wrist. But it made him looks way too boring, too "humans". So I started over and left these defaults.

The "broken" wrist makes him look way more dearticulated, more ghoul-ish. Same goes for the other mistakes I pointed out. I guess it's a matter of personal taste, I suppose some people would rather have something clean and accurate. But for this one I didn't. I tried to let him kinda "sketchy" when I cleaned him up because I loved how the chaotic sketching add to the vibe.

I made this as a joke, but it was kinda the idea. Sam just showing off his fang as a way to say "no shit" to someone poiting out he's a vampire. It's not even that he's proud of being one, he just doesn't care.

I created the idea of a MCU Sam vampire a few months ago when I made him on Sims 4. I like playing Sims since the first one came out, it's part of my holy creative trinity. I think I mentionned that here already and I will mention it again but basically I always need to create, in a way or another. It stresses me out if I can't create my own little world. That's why I love playing Sims, Animal Crossing or Minecraft. I can create my own spaces and I also love how you gotta "work" for it, it's rewarding. But because I'm absolutly obsess by Sam in every aspect of my life (because, again, I projects to him and express myself through him so he kinda became my "avatar"), I always made them. I have a "Sam house" in my Animal Crossing New Leaf island even if he's not my main character (DA-1959-4146-9797 if you wanna visit it), I have a Sam villager when I play Minecraft and I have Sam Sims (I have two, comics Sam and MCU Sam). There's no gamma irradiated in Sims, obviously, you have werewolves (which works very well for Bruce), spellcasters, mermaids, ghosts, aliens and vampires. I think vampires matches Sam better, maybe because I have a huge fascination for Dracula since I'm 3 lol, so that's how I made him.

And this idea of a MCU Sam vampire kinda grew in me, so I gave him a whole lore to matches his official writing but in a "what if" kind of universe with vampires and shit. Maybe I'll share the whole lore one day, maybe I'll start making posts about the "what if/AU" I created with the boys but for now I'll stick to this art specifically. I was hesitant for the back eye, I knew I wanted a black eye but I didn't know if I wanted it to be the green eye or the blind white one. I ended doing the blind one, the green is unique and eye catchy enough, if that makes sense. It's still blind in my headcanon lol.

I made him crouched to have him be kinda "crow-ish", gave him this very "I don't give a shit" face and added some very emo but damaged clothes. He is very emo in the movie. I gave him crows, the one on the back being his "wings", but if you pay attention you'll notice it's not the first time and it won't be the last either.

There's a few reasons to that. First of all, MCU Sam was always written as a "bird" pre-mutation. In the book he's compared to a mocking bird. In the MCU, his shirt is a reference to a bluebird named Blue. Also because of his clash with Sam Wilson, represented by a falcon even when he's Captain America. It's just a theory but I think the initial idea with their Sam Sam dynamic was to have Sam (Sterns) as a dark mirror of what Sam Wilson represents (hope, justice). Sam (Sterns) was supposed to be a hope and a justice for victims of the system but in a dark way. Thus the reason he called himself a hero at some point. So it's only fiting to have him being also symbolized by a bird, but a dark one. A crow (or raven, just whatever is part of the crow family).

Crows are a representation of death, which is what MCU was meant to be too.

Crows are unfairly rejected. They're very smart, considered as the smartest birds. They're reckless when they protect themself. They also represent sorrow, lost and a change. A transformation in the nature of your soul, if you will. A crow is also the name we give to dark threatening people working in the shadow to destroy someone, or a person who denounce someone (so basically his behaviors against Ross in the movie). Crows are powerful in an esotherism pov, that's why they're often related to witches as well. They're used as a warning and that matches Sam too, he's a warning. Crows make you feel observed. They have many meaning and symbols but they all matches Sam. But I was always into crows, I didn't wait for MCU Sam to exist to give Sam crows. I suffer dissociation (not a DID, there's a lot of dissociative disorders), in the way that most of my memories don't belong to me and they give me a sensation of vertigo and sickness. They can lead to huge panic attack. Basically my life is fragmented in 3, my childhood and now, my teenage years and the previous year and ~10 years when my health was at his worst. I'd say the real me is the one I am now, as different as I am from my childhood because of all the traumas that made me way more emo and grumpy as well, but that's me. I can tell because my childhood memories are slowly coming back to me and they feel like mine now. This "switch" happened when I saw Cap 4, but again, that's another story I want to express in a post dedicated to it. What you need to know is my first real memory is related to crows. As a kid, I would spend my October school break at my grand parents' house, my Summers too and most of my childhood memories are from these moments. They used to live in a house in the middle of fields and forests, far from everything. They had one neighbour and that's it, the closest town (a very small one) was 15min car ride away. And because they lived (still do) in the Berry (the country of witchies and fog), I was raised with these very gothic ghost stories. That's how my love for this aesthetic was born. And my first "real" memory are crows in their trees, cawing. So, to me, crows are kind of connected to this idea of being "you". I don't know if it makes sense. To aknowledge what you were, what you know are, your pain, your traumas and everything that made you into who you are.

So I like having MCU Sam surrounded by crows who kinda understand him (or at least aren't afraid of him) as if he was one of them. I think it suits him well to be a crow, because of everything I mentionned. That's why I added a Phantom Manor soundtrack to this post. When I was a kid, I was absolutly terrorized by the Phantom Manor. Y'know the moment they say "there's no window and no door"? Well, when I was 5 I looked around me and there were no window and no door indeed so I freaked out and cried so hard and was so scared they had to evacuate me with my mom through the stage rooms or whatever it's called. But this intense fear I felt that day, a fear of death because I really thought it was real (again, I was 5 lol) developped in me a fascination for the Phantom Manor. I think that's how most of my obsessions were born, out of an intense fear. But anyway, ever since I was 5, I was always absolutly FASCINATED by the Phantom Manor, I love it (not Haunted Mansion, I'm really talking about Phantom Manor here). That's why I love Disneyland, only for Frontierland aka Thunder Mesa, I love the vibe and I like that they left this place untouched by Disney licences (you have a Coco restaurant and that's it) unlike everything else (like Space Mountain becoming Star Wars instead of a very cool Jules Verne homage). I had a crush on the Phantom (don't judge me) and I'm still obsess with him. Like, I have this big-ass lenticular framed poster of him in my room and shit.

There's something you'll notice if you ever go to Disneyland Paris and do Phantom Manor, there's a crow. You can see and ear a crow in a lot of scenes. In the piano scene, in the Leota scene and of course with the Phantom himself. That's because the crow is here to symbolize his presence. When you see the crow, or ear him, it means the Phantom is watching you. And that's something I absolutly love and use with MCU Sam, having a crow warning of his presence. You'll see that when I share some What If/AU of him lol.

But anyway, I wanted this little doodle (because that's what it was supposed to be lol) colorless at first, but I like adding just one nuance (green here), I think it looks cool. I also love this very cartoonish vibe I gave him with big eyes, not much details, very thin members, clumsy lines and proportions etc... I think he looks very very nice like this, I love him a lot and it feels good to be able to fully love something you draw again lol, I'm really happy with what I'm doing lately. Anyway, until next time, enjoy~