This is my non-official, non-commercial site about the beloved Masters of the Universe. My intention is to spread and share my enthusiasm about this fantastic toy line that accompanied my childhood.
I just realised I was never too much into flying vehicles or action figures. It wouldn’t stop me from buying those as a kid, but they weren’t my favourites. MOTU had just very few, Buzz Off, Zoar, maybe Hordak, and of course Stratos. The rest needed a Wind Raider.
MASK had many more, Thunderhawk, Stiletto, Firefly, Manta, Condor, Dynamo, Slingshot, Switchblade, Goliath, Buzzard, Meteor, Wolfbeast, Vampire, and the amazing Corvette Raven brought your imagination high up.
I combined Stratos and Raven, creating Ravos, THE airborne superhero. Stratos was never in my collection, though I do like the gray color. But the fly-theme in my opinion was not well visible. He’s more like some hairy guy who clipped feathers to his arms.
Raven’s colors were perfect for a more serious looking hero. The Gulliver mask of Calhoun Burns might look a bit like a biker helmet. It hides Stratos’ ape-like face. Ravos is using one of the immobiliser discs, which might return to him like Thor’s hammer. If I’m not mistaken Stratos in the original version had no weapon at all.
I came up with a raven logo, because it always bothered me how little MASK vehicle names were connected to their design. Isn’t it weak to have nothing but black color on a car called Raven?
Stratos is represented in the feather attachments, and the harness.
Michelangelo’s master piece, part of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, painted c. 1508–1512, remastered, showing the creation of Prince Adam, not as a biological act, but as a logical act, the King nominating his successor. King Randor demonstrates a fierce face expression, the crown perfectly in place, his cape broad-shattered. It is subject to the viewer to decide whether the king’s arms appear weaker than we are used from the toyline, or is this a plumb try of the painter to bring some perspective into the painting? His right hand, ugly deformated, with tiny pinky and ring finger.
Supported is the king in this DIN A4 sized coloration by no one less than the Scorceress, who seems to take a central role in this act. While the original only fringes the creator, we here find much more prominent support for the Creator. Stratos, another hero with the ability to fly, appears to be abnormal large, accessing the scene from a point behind the king, if the artist considered perspective, than even larger compared to the king. Where lies the importance of this usually low significant character? Does he carry the King? His strained face could implement this thought. But over his right shoulder, we can see a bit of Buzz-off’s wing, and looking further down we can see another wing a parts of his torso. The bee man obviously has a task to do behind the king. It must be holding him, since the king is the only character on the creators side, that cannot fly. Perhaps Stratos’ and Buzz-off are in a fight of whom is the one to carry the king.
In the King’s left, maybe only 4 fingered hand, we find the, as loyal as clumsy, Orko. Half of it we see, making clear that he is of no significance here. His role is to not mess it up, from his position, unable to carry the creator, but we are left alone with the imagination that Orko’s left hand holds the hand of another hero. Could it be Extendar reaching over from a close by pinnacle?? We don’t know.
On the other side is Adam, resting, and maybe disturbed from frolicking, cleary unimpressed by the posse that showed up. Remaining in frolicking pose still, resting the holy arm on his knee, and none of his weapons around. His face speaks to us, and it hits us like a tree, he does not glance at his creator in the act of assigning him to the task of his life. Not sure if he doesn’t care, but the painter wanted us to see that Adam resignates. Wrinkels of his mouth pointing down, we must acknowledge that Adam here accepts, without any enthusiasm.
The attentive spectator will see that not Cringer is with Adam, and Orko is not even close. But Stonedar, usually nothing but a hop-in character, is closest to Adam. Even joining him on his pinnacle. But in what position, almost kissing his foot, face away from the posse around King Randor, is he hiding? Or did he sneak up the hill to convince Adam to accept? Or is Stonedar`s proximity to Adam a menace, a proof that no one can escape the assigned role as Master of the Universe? We don’t know.
“I hate these SMASTERS” may Glow-garmel shout while he waves his mesh. Gargamel is a very mean character in the smurfs, and he ruins the perfect live in the smurf village. Combined with Scare glow he does glow of course, but also got a purple collar and skeleton- hands of course! His even meaner cat Azrael is now Panthor. I’ll call him Azraelor! Very simple to crossover, any violet cat will make a MOTU fan think of Panthor..
So far so good, black background and aura around his head are fine. BUT the smurfs gave me headaches, maybe because I tried to put too many details in a tiny object. Man-E-faces might be obvious (though he’s got that olfactory bulb), he is now Man-E-smurf, but Stratos (Strato smurf, hmhm!) was not a good choice. He has just not enough outstanding details. And yes, he tries to climb down the table, while he is obviously able to fly. That’s smurf in a nutshell, isn’t it?
Yeah but the table… I was not able to get that perspective, and very clear: Drawing everything in the same layer does not help! I tried, because I didn’t know better, and that made it impossible to erase and try again. A new layer for table would have given me all options to work it out.
Be what it is, this was an early work in Autodesk Sketchbook and it is not too bad I think! More to come
