Art Post - To shed those tears

Broken Crown - Mumford and Sons

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Samuel Sterns / The Leader (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

He got carried away by the song he was playing, don't judge him. I am OBSESS with that picture of Tim Blake Nelson playing guitar on the set of Captain America Brave New World. I was obsessed with it before it even comes out in fact. In comics (in the 90s during Peter David's run), Sam throw very casually that thanks to the connexion he accidentally created with Rick Jones he can play guitar like a professional (and harmonica too). This information is often shared in a few Marvel encyclopedia from the 90s as well and ever since I've been DYING to see Sam playing guitar. So when Anthony Mackie said Tim Blake Nelson was playing guitar on set I got crazy over this idea.

(it's written 5 months because I'm typing this in Sept 2025 but the whole post and the art I'm sharing were originally made in April so pretend what you're reading here was typed in April as well alright)

So OF COURSE I'd doodle that with MCU Sam. That's how it started, a doodle

That's how it started and what it was supposed to be. Sam's expression on the hood-less one is different because he was meant to be hyper focusing here, he wasn't meant to cry at first. I got carried away with him as I was drawing it haha

I guess it's just me projecting but it's hard not to when everything about him makes me think about my own life. So it's something I often asked myself.

Sure it's a 2 hours movie but when you get attached to a character you can't help but give them an entire life, so you wonder what happened out screen and what I wonder the most about Sam is how many time did he cry himself out until he couldn't anymore. I know exactly how he would feel because I used to be a little sunshine like him and I, too, got slowly devored by the black hole loneliness and cruelty create in your heart.

I never draw Sam crying, comics Sam I mean, I mostly draw him smirking, playful or sometimes serious but I almost never draw him crying. I think it happened once. Which is weird because I do write him crying a lot (I write when I'm bored but it's shit, I'm a terrible writer, I just like writing doomed by destiny gays enemies and so some Sam x Bruce stuff but while I don't mind sharing shitty doodles, I don't have the guts to share my dumbass yaoi unfinished writing lol), I don't know why it was always so hard for me to draw him crying when it's so easy to write him do it. But again, Sam (both Sam) is my way to express myself. I suppose I can't draw him crying because I couldn't cry either (I do cry a lot, over fiction mostly LOL or when I'm very upset or excited, but when it comes to express my own pain I can't). Because I'm always smiling and pretending I'm that strong confident person, like Sam does. Only recently did I learn to fully be myself again, to be true to myself, to allow me to feel sad and lonely and to cry (boy how much I cried for pretty everything since I saw Cap 4 lol). Which is hard, y'know, because I'm not alone. There's so many people supporting me daily, let it be in my real everyday life through my closed ones or online. So you always feel guilt when you feel lonely when there's so many people around you to help you out. But it is what it is, it doesn't matter how hard people try, they can never fully get what you're living (mostly because you can't even properly express it) so you can't help but feel lonely sometimes anyway. And I learnt to express that and to allow myself to feel bad from time to time through MCU Sam. Because it feels good to feel bad once in a while too. Negative emotions aren't here to make you suffer, they're here to help you by warning you something is wrong and to regulate you. It's important to accept them and express them.

I said with a precedent art that I loved drawing MCU Sam crying because it was my way to shed my own tears.

That's why at first he had just a sad look. But as I was going one, I made him angrier. And the art became a reflexion of what I was feeling. As he's going on with his music, he gets carried away and express all the restrained bitterness he has in his heart. That's how I felt drawing this. Because suddenly I was catching up on almost 20 years of restrained feeling and pain.

My MCU Sam fanarts are some of my most simple arts and yet they're some of my most personal. My life changed so much since this movie came out (for the best), it's insane. I learnt to understand and accept part of myself that I ignored for years. I learnt to be me, with all my feelings and complexity. I learnt to face my anger, my fears and my sadness and to embrace them. One day I'll make a post about how much it changed my life, but I'll keep that for later. Let's enjoy that art for now. Me from 5 months later : This art specifically was an epiphany for me. It has me drastically changed my artstyle afterward. Not immediatly after it, I think I pulled two other arts before that (one being a commission so I was too afraid of testing things on it), but it had me going back to something way more vibrant, focusing on linearts again, having these line around shadows and stuff like that. I often wanted to "fix" it to match my current artstyle but I like it better this way. Because it was the click I needed to finally embrace myself and this feeling translate through the way I draw, so I leave this one untouched, even if I think I could do way better now. There's something bitter sweet about it that I need to left untouched.

You can't see it because you're not in my mind but most of the arts I did before this one were absolutly boring and forced. Except for the commissions and I'm glad I had so many at this moment because if it wasn't for them there's a huge chance I would just have stopped drawing for a few months otherwise because I was just so unsatisfied with what I was doing (even if I think my skill was very weak during this period and I could have done better with my commissions at my prime but that's a different feeling and my customers are all happy so that's all that matter).

And when you look at what I did, between Sept 2024 and Feb 2025 there's almost no personal Arts and I hate almost all of them. I won't say which one I hate because I will end up redrawing them with my heart anyway and I don't want you to reassure me with "no it was good", I'm not saying it was bad, I'm saying I hated doing them and I hate the result, which is a different feeling and a feeling I'm allowed to feel. Because I didn't make them out of genuine passion, I made them because I felt like I had to. And the result is they feel like I didn't make it, as "recognizable" as my artstyle is in them. I'm not saying this to be hard on myself, I'm saying this to have you understand how even when someone looks ok they're not. And I think I was the first one to not realize how bad I felt back then.

What made me felt so bad and my arts so "not like me" is how I was in this in-between of getting better but still not good enough, or rather maybe scared of getting better. I talked about that longer in this post. I know that's a lot of reading but if you're going through something like that I think it can help you put words on what you need to express. I felt good enough to understand something was off about him and to feel the need to do better and be better, but not good enough to actually do all that, which is very painful and fustrating.

Getting better is a scary process. MCU Sam was the little push I needed but even after that it took me a few weeks to leave that fog I was in, to recover. And while I was leaving that fog I got blinded by the sudden light, it scared me away because I wasn't used to it and I think this feeling is very easy to see in what I did during that in between (at least it is for me). But most importantly, I have to express this feeling. That's why I don't talk too much about it on my social media, because people will try to be kind and reassure me and tell me this is good and why I do it here where you can't really answer it. Because that's not what I need to hear, I don't need you to tell me "it's good", what I need is to be allowed to be disappointed in myself and to grow. One of the reason I was so scared of changing and doing what I want is because I felt like I wasn't allowed to be disappointed in something if people like it and because people like what I was doing I wasn't allowed to evolve. But I was wrong, people who really care will always encourage you to do what you want, no matter if they like the empty things more than your passionate ones. But that's why it's important that you learn to allow people to express their self disappointment, because without that feeling they cannot evolve properly and they'll be trapped, like me.

Apparently I was recovering from something when I drew this, I don't remember (probably a a tattoo, I had 2 during this period and they tend to make me sick for a day or two because of the impact they have on my health). I tend to forget when I got sick lol that's why I don't remember a lot of things of my life. So I didn't put a lot of energy in this bonus doodle, but I wanted -or rather I NEEDED- to draw this. To give a Bruce to Sam the same way I have my fiance to comfort me everytime I feel bad. Because I project so it's important for me to give him an happy ending as well.

I was always into Samuce (Sam Sterns x Bruce Banner gay relationship for the two of you who don't follow) because while it's one-sided, I love the angsty very twisted "I hate how I love you, I hate you for not loving me back" relationship Sam developped for Bruce with time when he didn't give a shit about him at first. Sam wanted Bruce to be his "brother", his "friend" and sometimes it seems like he wanted Bruce to be more than that and he hates feeling this way for him but he also hates how Bruce "rejected" him. In the MCU it's different, because Sam and Bruce have an history already and I think Sam would blame Bruce over his pain, because Bruce became the hero Sam wanted to be while Sam became the monster Bruce was and all of that because he helped Bruce. They literally switched their place and there's no way Sam doesn't feel bitter about it. There's no way he doesn't feel jealous and forsook. There's no way he wasn't secretly hoping Bruce would try to save him the way he tried to save Bruce (even if he got carried away by his love for science, his initial intention was still to help Bruce). There's no way he wasn't expecting Bruce to know better than the "terrorist" lies Ross threw to save his own ass and yet. Yet Bruce abandonned him (or at least that's how he probably felt about it). I'll talk about this longer in a another post (that's a lot of things I need to write LOL but I'm still catching up on my older posts, as you can see) but Bruce became the sunshine Sam used to be while Sam became the shadow Bruce was and I think Bruce has the power to bring back a bit of light in Sam's life the same way my fiance was able to bring some in mine. And sure, you never fully recover from that. I'm a way more grumpy and somewhat nihilistic person now but I still have my moment of absolute silliness and relativism that are real and not just a mask anymore and I think Sam can find a similar balance. Though, unlike me, he would probably not express it with so much intensity and brightness and would be way more shy about it and barely show any expressions because his traumas are waaay bigger than mine so I don't think he can just trust himself and the World enough to properly show enthousiasm, but I think through Bruce he can learn to appreciate small things again and smile once in a while (and maybe even laugh, who knows). The same way I'm learning to appreciate very simple life things we all took for granted, like going for a walk, sitting and watching the time going by, eating something nice, sleeping on a comfortable bed. I started writing (well, more like imagining, I didn't start actually typing it) a "good ending" where Bruce just take care of Sam after Cap 4 and you have Sam learning to appreciate things again and idk, I'm not sure I'll ever share that because while it means everything to me, do people who have all these things for granted can really care, understand or appreciate? Like, it's worth writing for myself so I'll do it for myself but is it worth sharing? Idk, I'll think about it when I have time actually WRITE lol. Anyway, that's a lot of blabla and tbf I didn't even say everything I wanted to say because I'm clumsy and I just forget things and I'll go back to it thinking "ah jeez, I forgot to talk about this and that" but I think I said enough to have you understand the importance of this drawing in my life and how a simple fanart can be so personal and important to their maker. So until next time, enjoy~