Created for a private collector, this project began with the collector’s personal reading of two footballers, their shared history and connection. The requested themes included loyalty, separation, faith, legacy and the hope of reunion. These interpretations reflect the collector’s perspective and are presented as the narrative basis of the commission, rather than as an objective or official account of either player or their relationship.

My role was to translate and expand that emotional brief into a coherent tarot-inspired visual system through visual research, classical references, Latin mottos, emblems, ornamental symbolism, composition and digital illustration, refining the imagery with the client throughout the process.

Deliverables: Three card fronts and three coordinated card backs.

Rather than claim a direct historical lineage, I used a conceptual parallel: football and Roman spectacle both turn public competition into collective identity. The players could therefore be framed as contemporary combatants—celebrated, scrutinised and bound to a crowd.

Ancient architecture became a visual language, not a reconstruction.

One shared architecture carries the triptych: four footballs anchor the corners, while a goalmouth, serpents, a dedicated Latin-motto panel, twin No. 10s and trophy motifs repeat across the set. Player-specific symbols then change within that structure—league and club identity for the blue card; faith, family origin and national belonging for the red; both systems meeting in the shared gold frame.

Consistency came from the structure; meaning came from the substitutions.

The blue card frames a new captain as both heir and guardian. The collector imagined Lautaro crowned by the absent friend who helped shape him, so red hands remain active within the coronation.

An oak-leaf corona civica shifts the idea from splendour towards protection and service. A curule seat—associated with Roman magistracy—frames leadership as office and duty rather than comfort. A Milanese triumphal arch and football sceptre locate that symbolic rise within the club’s world.

The client described Lukaku as a fighter shaped by hardship. I turned that reading into an arena passage: a figure entering uncertainty, with victory understood as survival as much as glory.

The upward gesture, cross and inherited emblems carry faith and family. Thorns, blood and a serpent turn pressure into physical obstacles. A distant blue silhouette keeps reunion visible but unresolved.

The architecture functions as an emotional threshold rather than a documentary reconstruction of a specific historical gate.

The requested mirror and a Roman temple shared the same underlying grammar: pediment, columns, central axis and approach. Maison Carrée supplied the architectural logic. Adding steps turned the remembered victory into a destination and allowed the motto to become part of the structure.

AMICUS USQUE AD ARAS — conventional sense: “a friend to the very end.” Its literal reference to the altars also reinforces the temple cue.

Two focused revisions restored hierarchy without removing meaning. On the red card, foreground hands became thorns and blood, reopening the path around the figure. On the shared card, a central emblem became altar steps, clarifying the ascent and integrating the motto.

The three coordinated backs extend the same architectural grammar across blue, red and gold variants, allowing the set to read as one relationship before any card is turned over.

Delivered as three high-resolution fronts and three coordinated backs for the collector’s intended print use. Layered PSD and high-resolution JPEG files were supplied, and the client approved the completed work. The final triptych reads as one relationship across three distinct symbolic portraits: succession, ordeal and the hope of reunion.

ROLE Visual concept development · narrative interpretation · visual research · art direction · composition · ornamental design · digital illustration · final artwork

TOOL Clip Studio Paint

DURATION December 2023 – May 2024

PROJECT NOTICE Independent private commission. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any player, club, league, national team, J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. or any other rights holder. The Harry Potter-related reference was included at the collector’s request; underlying third-party rights remain with their respective owners. Displayed as a watermarked portfolio sample; no official merchandise or licensing relationship is implied.