I'd Prefer to Keep A Mystery: The Incredible Art of Rum-Locker!

I am totally infatuated with the work of freelance artist and character illustrator Rum-Locker. Though his abilities are highly in demand, very little is known about the artist himself, and for good reason. When we reached out to him, Rum-Locker explained,  "I am living in a country that is not really LGBT friendly and also I am still in the closet because I lived in conservative family. But I guess I am ok as long as I don't have to share my own picture, hahaha. I do hope you know my feeling about this?"

So, here's what we do know. Rum-Locker is a genre-crossing, self-taught artist who began seriously practicing his craft in 2010. He currently lives in Asia, "exactly where I'd prefer to keep a mystery for now." According to his Twitter description, he is an insect enthusiast and "hella gay." When I asked who his influences are, he responded, "Ah, my art pretty much inspired and influenced by J.C Leyendecker, Yoshinari Kou and Yoshitaka Amano. Some of my favorite artists are Nickie Charles, Butch McLogic, and also Marcus, and many more!! (oh and please correct my grammar as well, since my English is not that good)." I wouldn't dare!

Currently, Rum-Locker is working as a character designer for an indie game project called Sanctum Polis and doing some work for The Young Protector's Alex Woolfson! Since Rum-Locker can't divulge too much info about himself, we decided to ask Alex Woolfson for a short statement, and he couldn't say enough nice things:

"I had seen Rum-Locker's work on Tumblr, really liked what I saw, and a short time ago I reached out to him to see if he was available to work on some of my The Young Protectors' Kickstarter pin-up prints. Well, my printer has very specific requirements for the kinds of files they need and it turned out that he wouldn't be able to work with my printer's specs at this time—so Kickstarter was out—but I liked his work so much, I asked him if I could hire him to create something purely digital for my Patrons. Something really special.  

Well, as it turns out, he was already a HUGE fan of The Annihilator (the supervillain from my comic, The Young Protectors) and so I was able to commission him to do a fully-nude, full body, Full Monty pin-up of my sexy super-villain. 

And man, did he ever knock it out of the park! Such incredible detail—those beautiful eyes, the perfect expression, amazing skin and physique, down to hundreds of individual hairs. Even though it borders on photo-realistic, it still is 100% the character from my comic. The most consistent comment I've gotten from my Patrons (once they get their jaw off the floor) is "Now I totally understand why Kyle fell for him!"  He completely brought The Annihilator to life. I was over the moon with every revision he sent me while we worked together. 

And on top of it all, he's a total pro. Everything was delivered on time. The few notes I had were immediately addressed. He was an absolute pleasure to work with and I'm really glad to have him as part of our team. I can't wait to see what he does with our hero, Kyle."

If you would like to explore more of Rum-Locker on your own, we suggest his NSFW Tumblr, Twitter, and his totally SFW ArtStation page! Otherwise, enjoy the art below!