Camael - The Archangel of Divination

Welcome, everyone, to the artwork for Camael, a mighty warrior who can see into the future!

Camael might actually be my favorite Archangel. It gets harder to choose all the time. In Classic, the Archangels (There were only four of them, and it was a sausage party with Uzziel being the lone woman) were rather boring and bland. There was the old, wise one... the young, strong one, the one that could inflate his size...

Yawn.

That was Cryopod Classic. Now, in Refresh, all of the Archangels have distinct designs, personalities, and motivations as well.

Camael is the most troubled among her family. With her ability to peer into the future, both near and far, she can foresee events taking place, yet has little ability to influence them. Guided by her belief in the Creator, Camael does not attempt to change the future, since she believes Fate is set in stone, but instead aims to soften its blow.

From Camael's perspective, the angels will perish and nobody can save them. She offers words of encouragement and proudly proclaims that the angels will reign supreme, but all her words are bravado. 

In her case, the ability to divine the future is a curse, not a blessing. She is cursed to slumber night after night, dwelling on nightmares and things that will eventually come to pass. Standing in the way of the Creator's divine plan is unthinkable for an Archangel as principled as Camael.

But, given the events that will eventually befall her family, how will her beliefs and resolve hold? Will she stand steadfast and adhere to Fate's will, or will she press against the tide, seeking to save those she loves most?

...

Below are various stages of the WIP art I posted in the Discord. If you want to see more, be sure and join it by clicking the link here!  

https://discord.gg/uTmq2dM

This is the first ever design for Camael. Iskafiy, from Fiverr, made her, and she's pretty amazing! However, her wings were a bit tiny, and I wanted more imposing armor for her.

BOOM. In comes Iskafiy again with a total revamp. She retains that sharp, keep edge, but now has much spiffier armor, more majestic wings, and eyebrows that could crush steel.

At this point, the design for Camael was perfect in my eyes. Seriously. It's perfect.

However, I still wanted to get her in an action pose. And so, I had MWTX work on the revamps for her.

A good start, but I wanted to be a bit closer to the action, and watching as she slams the hammer against our faces.

Muuuuch better.

We faced a bit of indecision about the crosses on the hammer, however I didn't really like the red cross on Mjolnir, so we decided to remove it. In retrospect, having it be a more subtle engraving would be kinda cool.

By now, the picture is really starting to take shape.

This was MWTX's "final" version, but naturally we had some fixes to make. Only two of them, but, fixes nonetheless.

1. Her face was too soft and pretty. I wanted something with a harder edge.

2. It's always daylight in Heaven, and there's no moon/sun/etc. I suppose this was an error in translation.

Next, we worked up to this version. Her face was too doll-like before, but I feel like this was a violent jump in the opposite direction.

Eventually, we settled on the image below... the final design.

Tadaa!

I don't necessarily think this Camael is perfect, but she is really great overall. Her jaw is maybe a tad too square, but I feel that she has a really great personality coming through her design. Camael is a hardened military badass, someone who will go to any length to protect her closest family members... even if it means sacrificing her own soul.

Thanks for reading, guys!