When I hear the word “wrath” I don’t generally think of hope, honor or righteousness. I find those to be a bit of a mismatch, similar to reading from the Big Book; “Every living substance that I have made will I destroy,” and several pages later: “Love thy neighbor as thyself”.

Regardless, I wasn’t asked to write prose for the bible or bestow names on Magic the Gathering angels. So, we have “Akroma, Angel of Wrath,” champion of law, righteousness, hope and honor, and an alternate reality of her, called “ Akroma, Angel of Fury,” bursting with chaos and destruction.

My intent was to ratchet up the polarity of their personalities: the heavenly juxtaposed to the savage, vengeful presence.

I wanted the white Akroma to feel like someone I could trust and to feel awestruck by, but apprehensive about the red Akroma’s unpredictable, explosive temperament.

From start to finish my visual allies were Ron Spears’ vibrant version of red Akroma and Chippy’s masterful, elegant rendition of the white Akroma. I followed their costuming cues, while allowing myself a bit of stylistic freedom.

Speaking of costuming, both of these girls have swords, I tell ya! Blades this size actually need wings of their own! But hey, we’re talking about angels here.

Angels (with superhuman powers) or not, I feel that one would need to sport more than a little angelic muscle to hoist those babies, not to mention that capable physiques are my default preference, as you probably already know.

I mean, these angels are supposed to inspire armies and sow chaos and destruction. Both of their bodies were loosely referenced from photos of Erin Stern, who is a Figure Olympian and awesome fitness guru, and also my reference for Basandra, Battle Seraph.

Below, are the assignment descriptions given to me by the art director.

I noodled around with many tiny thumbnail versions and then went on to tighten up the two I felt best about. The sketches were then submitted and approved and then I went on to paint the illustrations. Both pieces are rendered on velvet fine art paper using acrylic, oil and colored pencil.

Title: Akroma, Angel of Wrath

ART DESCRIPTION:

Color: White creature
Location: Your choice
Action: Show the angel Akroma, an alabaster-skinned, indigo-haired champion of law and righteousness. She is the righteous advocate of justice. Show her in the sky over a battlefield. The camera directly in front of her as she approaches fearlessly, leading her troops into the fray. Maybe in the background, we can see legions of knights behind her, willing to follow her to their deaths.
Focus: Akroma
Mood: An awe-inspiring leader of armies

Title: Akroma, Angel of Fury

ART DESCRIPTION:

Color: Red creature
Location: In the night sky
Action: Show the angel Akroma as a fiery angel of vengeance. Hovering in the night sky, she holds a flaming sword above her head. Beams of reddish light stream from the sword, illuminating the dark horizon. This is an “alternate universe” version of the white-aligned Akroma. We need a new version of red-aligned Akroma. She is like a natural disaster soaring through the skies, sowing destruction and chaos in her wake. Red-aligned Akroma is unpredictable, savage and callous.
Focus: Akroma
Mood: Ruthless and vengeful