Barbatos - The Duke of Metal

Welcome to another character art redesign and showcase. This is going to be the first publicly available one since I started making these, but the Archangels will follow soon once we finish making the final three.

Barbatos - The Duke of Metal, is potentially one of the coolest characters in Cryopod. Initially, I had a really great artist, Azante, design him.

The original design was fairly subdued. I feel that his personality of a calm, peaceful warrior, encased in a shell of black armor, came through better than the drawing above.

Barbatos has two sides. Not easily prone to anger, the Duke of Metal is a pacifist, one who suffers immeasurably thanks to a terrible mistake he made as a young Demon Lord. Barbatos and his brother, Artorias, were forced to fuse their bodies together when Barbatos devoured the Archangel Uriel. Her mana corrupted his body, threatening to rip him to shreds from the inside out and give her full control. Only the combination of two demon souls working together in tandem could suppress her incredible power enough so that she couldn't take over.

However... there is a catch. Barbatos can never fall asleep. Whenever he rests, even for a brief, passing moment, Uriel has a chance of taking over. She is a vengeful Archangel, one who lives only to see the demons exterminated, especially after they slaughtered all of her people.

Uriel is the last of her kind. Every day she lives is a torturous reminder of everyone she's lost. She cares little for politeness, niceties, or anything else. All who oppose her single-minded goal of demon extinction must perish.

The image above is a newly reimagined Barbatos. I always wanted his armor to be more of a living thing. Chinks and cracks all throughout allow his demonic energy to breathe, and they change color when Uriel takes over.

I also had MWTX reimagine the sword. The weapon, one that represents the physical manifestation of Artorias's soul, is a living blade that weighs nearly a ton. It can split granite as effortlessly as skulls. The eye on the blade, a living, breathing part of the hilt, allows Artorias some degree of autonomous control. If Barbatos drops his sword, Artorias can sprout spiderlike legs and crawl back to his brother, reuniting with him, as he did in the fight against the Black Queen.

The original sword design by Azante was okay, but I wanted something more demonic. I imagine we'll probably change the shape of it a bit in future illustrations, but for now, it looks pretty awesome.

Both illustrations also show the mermaids, which represent Barbatos's inner Yin and Yang - the duality of his demonic existence, mixed with his pacifism and virtue. Barbatos is not without sin, for he has murdered many humans and angels during his lifetime. However, he set aside his past at some point, realizing that the acts he committed were evil. Barbatos only wishes to live quietly, murmuring to the mermaids in his cave where he will protect them from harm.

However... Uriel never sleeps. She watches. Always.

....

Check out other art below!

This is the initial design for Barbatos's sword. Unfortunately, I thought the coloring didn't fit well with my description inside the story. It also looked kinda cartoony. I wanted something that would blend in with Barbatos's color schema.

This is the final design of Barbatos's sword had a few other changes beside the color. The center of the blade seemed too thin, as if it would snap under any impact. MWTX added weblike strands to 'reinforce' the blade, giving it a really cool, unique look.

The initial Barbatos character design. The only things we changed was the color to make it much redder, and also the gold chain. It seemed a bit too gaudy for Barbatos, but I had MWTX keep the shoulder-skulls. Those are slick.

The final version of Barbatos's character design, minus the sword. I wanted his eyes to be more intense, because those are a major focal point in Cryopod. Barbatos is an extremely intimidating character. He's like Batman, in that he scares anyone he talks to, even if he refuses to kill them. His glowing eyes are all part of his menacing first impression.

...

The next three characters MWTX will be working on are Samael, Uzziel, and Camael, in that order. I hope you guys like what we've got coming! I'm working with MWTX to put out art faster, so we'll be trying a new art style for them, trying to go for a more dark-knight comic-era look.

I really, really need new patrons right now. If you guys like the art, please support me on Patreon, so I can pay MWTX properly and eat decently. If not, I'll have to get a job, and that will dramatically cut back my hours I can spend writing for Cryopod.

Thanks for reading!