Or as I like to call it, “Adam Glenn with his big shiny sword.”
Loose painting practice of Adam Glenn / “He-Man” from Masters of the Universe. I ended up seeing this movie for a second time toward the end of June, haha. It was not planned, but I am so very, very happy it happened. :D I painted this as half warm-up half-practice over the course of a few days since then, featuring one of my favorite lines/moments from the movie upon the rewatch!
Earlier WIP. The most noticeable difference here is I redrew the hand in the final.
I slightly wish I had planned the drawing more from the start, as most of it was spent correcting errors present in the initial sketch, as I hadn’t planned on rendering this to the extent it ended up. I will learn this lesson, one day!
I had been telling my partner how forlorn I was feeling how I would never hear Skeletor’s voice again – the VA’s voice resonating throughout an entire theater really seems the most proper way to experience this character! I don’t think a headphones or a home movie experience can compare. Seeing the movie a second time was truly delightful – I was also reminded of how much I really enjoy Daniel Pemberton’s soundtrack for it. I’d been listening to the soundtrack since seeing the movie for the first time two Fridays ago, and hearing tracks that were now familiar to me on theater speakers was such an exhilarating experience.
I also caught a few more lines I missed upon a first watch, particularly those for Skeletor’s. He even calls himself a “Mad King”! (In the previous He-Man, post, I remarked how much Skeletor’s portrayal in this movie reminded me of the “Mad King Thorn” character from Guild Wars 2). I loved this second viewing so much because I had resigned myself to likely not being able to justify seeing it a second time – it felt like the universe plucked the opportunity for me to experience again, and honestly I enjoyed it even more the second time.
I could write a lot about this movie – and I have to friends, haha – on first watch, I was expecting it to be campy and kind of goofy. It is, because I was surprised by how earnest it was. In a sincere, and not contrived way. This stuck out to me even more on a second watch, and I now think this is as genuinely good movie. It is so much better than how it will likely be perceived as, at least now – I think it has the potential to reach a type of cult status in perhaps a few years (I’ve seen it compared to the Dungeons & Dragons movie a few times, in this way).
Maybe I will edit this later with further thoughts when I can edit them down a bit, because in many ways I think it’s a shame this movie didn’t do well in the box office, because the themes it portrays are very topical to today.
One more thing I find a bit funny about this painting, as I realized early on, though after I had settled on the pose, that this drawing has a similar pose as the first time I ever drew Trahearne. Hopefully there is nothing prophetic with regard to my next character fixation there. ;p
As is tradition, I wanted to adjust this piece after posting – I’ll append it to the full post below.