WARNING: Whilst the image itself doesn't have violence, it hints at it. The image has more of an ideological message, if not anything else.

The picture is a drawing by hand, which I still have on my corkboard. All four people on this picture are characters from my original series of works from The National Service Journal: (from left) Sylvain Dieudonné, Aimée Duchemin, Didier Deschamps and Tatienne Delacroix. Each one of them has a colour for a backdrop, denoting the four companies in the NSJ: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta.

'Ne me mori facias' is Latin for 'do not let me die'. That message and the blood splats all over the picture suggest that National Service isn't all that the authorities of Sauveterre (the characters' country of origin) play it out to be. It isn't entirely a fun camp for youths where values are instilled. It isn't watered-down military service. It is, indeed, a place where several trainees have died against their will. For fear of being jailed, trainees attend National Service, some at the expense of their own lives.

I edited the contrast and threw in one or two effects on PowerPoint (and added the text there too), added the blood splats on GIMP, but otherwise, the whole thing was done on paper with coloured gel pens.

© Troisnyx, 2011