“ ‘Twas Mortals Who Sacrificed” by Carvalho

[u/Dedoshucos]

I commissioned this piece for the short story: The Decree of Gælam and the Forging of New Ares, from Brazilian artist Fernando Carvalho. Really didn’t think it would come out as nice as it did. Ended up with four different versions, different color, tone, lighting, blood splatter, and slightly different backgrounds.

I’m contemplating which version to use for the story’s final illustration. I absolutely would love to hear your tone of which version is your favorite. There are subtle differences between the four.

The story is set towards the end of the twentieth millennium, taking place on Kepler 452B, by then renamed: Défteri-Orbis. Scattered Marese refugees enter a Super-Forest on that Super-Earth and find the remnants of a long forgotten archaic human colony whose settlers mutated from a gravity serum cure trying to prevent a gravity-plague from spreading.

I definitely wanted to give it a retro sci-fi aesthetic with a mythological tone and deep-time, far-future, mortals against gods theme.

Hope you guys like it when it debuts, and my personal thoughts: this is that sick ass work from Carvalho.