A few years back, games artist Toby Lewin had an image he drew for a Blizzard contest (above) go viral. You see it all over the internet these days, from posters to mouse pads, but this week it turned up in the real world on...a war memorial in the Ukranian capital Kiev.
Most times you see the picture it’s been stolen and uncredited, of course, which you can tell from the fact that even when it’s being used on places like Taobao to sell PC hardware, it’s never the finished image.
“The image itself is often being used in strange situations but this is definitely up there”, Lewin tells Kotaku. “Aside from not asking for permission the thing I find odd is that they never use the finished image. It’s always a super embarrassing work-in-progress.”
As you can see, the illustration wasn’t just pasted...someone fired up Photoshop and added some Ukranian colours to Tyrael’s wings, along with a shield.
You can get some more looks at the memorial in the video below, which was erected to commemorate those who have taken part in operations against the Russians since Putin’s first incursions in 2014.
If you’d like to see Lewin’s image in all its original glory, rather than the work-in-progress that folks are always passing around, you can see it and loads of his other stuff (he’s currently at Cloud Imperium working on Star Citizen) at his ArtStation page.
Thanks Terry!