Albert Soblirov

Based on the Japanese folktale of Momotarō, the illustration reimagines the hero's mythic birth as a corporate military experiment. His animal companions are recast as combat drones, his miraculous origin reduced to a biotech production line. A critique of militarization, nationalist myth-making, and engineered obedience.

Based on the West African Akan tale of Anansi, the trickster spider who brought stories to humanity, the illustration reframes that gift as a curse. In a breached server room, a hooded hacker is suspended beneath a colossal spider-drone stringing fibre-optic webs between server farms. She is flooding the screens with propaganda and disinformation.

Based on Japanese Kitsune folklore, fox spirits deceive through shapeshifting and illusion. The illustration reframes identity transformation as luxury consumption. In a high-end cyberpunk clinic, a nine-tailed fox aristocrat reclines as machines delicately remove her fox mask, while holographic human faces float around her like designer goods for sale.Workers around her indulge in her grooming and worship. It is a critique of beauty culture, wealth-driven identity, and the commodification of the self.

Based on the Chinese belief in the Red Thread of Fate, invisible cords said to bind destined lovers, the illustration reimagines this as a corporate product. A couple lies on operating tables with fibre-optic "Red Thread™" implants spliced into their spines, holographic ads promising eternal love overhead while a shadowy figure harvests their emotions as raw data. Intimacy becomes surveilled, branded, and monetized.

Based on the Haida folktale of the Raven and the First Men, where a raven opens a clamshell to release humanity into the world, the illustration inverts this act of liberation. A synthetic raven CEO looms over rows of glowing metal clams, each containing a flickering human soul, presenting them to corporate buyers. The raven's role as liberator is recast as hoarder and auctioneer, a reflection of how oligarchs and corporations monopolize data, culture, and identity, reducing collective memory into assets to be sold.

Old Norse mythology describes Valkyries as divine figures who descend to battlefields to choose the slain, carrying them to Valhalla to be reborn and honored as brave warriors. In this illustration, the Valkyries are reimagined as giant winged drones, picking over what little is left. It critiques the rise of military operations and their exploitation of global conflicts, which harm innocent people, echoing real-world anxieties about displacement, authoritarian control, and endless proxy wars.

In a scrap wasteland, smoke and debris fill the scene as a single tiny firebird remains. Its kind is scattered like scrap amongst the brown dirt. A symbol of rebirth and freedom is now the victim of ecological disaster, a critical view of harmful environmental practices, and humanity's continued reliance on animal abuse and harm to power its civilization no matter the cost.

Based on the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, the illustration reimagines the labyrinth as a crumbling megacity sector engineered to keep the poor lost and hunted. Refugees stumble through hostile architecture while a massive cybernetic enforcement machine stalks the corridors. In the foreground, one figure clutches a glowing fibre-optic thread leading them to safety. A reflection on urban alienation, engineered poverty, and systemic oppression.

MythOS