Attila the Hun

About this artwork

Attila the Hun, the Scourge of God, holds his Sword of Mars in readiness for his next bloody rampage against the fragmented Roman Empire. One writer from Attila’s time period, a Greco-Roman diplomat named Priscus, describes him as having a short stature, tanned skin, and a large head with small eyes and a flat nose, all taken as evidence of his Hunnic origin. To reflect this, I wanted my rendition of Attila to look Asian (or “Mongoloid”), but Asian features are not easy for me to nail down yet. The tiger-skin cape was an afterthought that came up during the coloring process. It was originally going to be a bear-skin, but I switched to a tiger since it looked less drab, not to mention fitting for a warlord of Asian descent.