Generally, you never get to hear the real story behind art. But in some cases, we get lucky and the past is revealed to us. This is the case today, as John Romero has finally explained who the man on the DOOM cover art is. The reveal of Doomguy, as Romero affectionately calls him, came in the form of a blog post on his website. Following a photo of the original DOOM cover, a short story unfolds.
Apparently, it all started when the illustrator of the original logo and box cover art, Don Punchatz, came over to the studio with a male model. The plan was to take photos of the model in preparation for the cover illustration. They gave him a toy plasma gun and told him he was supposed to strike various poses for the marine who would be on the box cover. Romero told him that he was going to be attacked by innumerable demons, and his job was to stand on the top of a hill and rain fiery plasma gun hell down on them.
It only took about 10 minutes before Romero got tired of giving the model directions. It would seem he just wasn’t able to picture the scene well enough to get a photo that worked for Romero or Punchatz. At this point, Romero wrestled his shirt off, grabbed the plasma gun, and took his rightful place as Doomguy. The male model was relegated to the part of the demon and was tasked with grabbing Romero’s legs and arms. Thus the final pose with a demon grabbing onto Doomguy’s wrist was born.
It is something we never thought we needed to know, but it’s pretty cool that we do.
Source: Rome.ro