#Phashonista - Son of Aten, ruler of the drip.

This close-up actually comes from an older drawing I made for Farewell — a Revo project I had paused for a while, so it never saw the light (you’ll get to see the real one in the future). The original drawing (Atem and Anzu in historically accurate ancient Egyptian clothes) took me two months of research and it’s still unfinished. One day, while staring at it for the thousandth time, I decided to sketch modern Atem on top of Pharaoh Atem — just for fun. PS: Atem looks a bit different here from how I draw him lately — his features weren’t as Egyptian-like yet, but I didn’t want to alter the original piece.

Funny trivia: last year I was looking for original music from Luxor/Thebes and accidentally came across a Cercle DJ set by Adriatique, a Swiss melodic techno duo I didn’t know at all — they performed an incredible live show right in front of Hatshepsut’s temple (like one of Atem’s dynastic grandmothers — lol —). It instantly reminded me of Atem and Anzu walking above Deir el-Bahari in my Farewell doujinshi — still unpublished — during that conversation about what Atem would have done if he had survived.(I’ll publish that doujin someday — it’s one of my most intense works.)That was the spark that eventually gave life to modern Atem. Martina came a few months later — but she’s absolutely the “daughter” of that same cosmic trip.

You can clearly see it — Atem was always stylish, commenting on Yugi’s look and, as Pharaoh, obviously decked out in jewelry and details.

Also, Kazuki Takahashi once said about himself that he was “a designer more than a mangaka” (it’s in Duel Art).