Post-apocalyptic artwork of the EDSA


As the scale of COVID-19 has disrupted every aspect of our lives, most of us couldn’t help but to compare these trying times to circumstances only seemingly possible in dystopian films or video games. 

Artist Argyl Leones, for instance, imagined the EDSA post-apocalypse. Using Adobe Photoshop, she drew a concept artwork that feels like something out of a high-definition video game.


The EDSA artwork


EDSA post-apocalypse
Image credit: Argyl Leones

While the main EDSA thoroughfare in Leones’ artwork is muted in gray hues, smoke is blanketing the air, roads are rugged, and military officers in gas masks are seen emerging from it all atop carabaos, or water buffalos. 

In a 4-minute timelapse video, she showed the tedious process that she went through the editing of the artwork. 

Sourcing various photos she found online and applying various tools in Photoshop with a practiced hand, she was able to come up with her creative vision of what a post-apocalyptic scene in the EDSA might look like. 

According to Leones in her Facebook post showing her work, she was “longing to make concept [art] like this.” 


‘Bad-ass’ carabaos


The posted artwork on Facebook gained massive recognition, getting 16,000 shares as of the time of writing. Netizens were all appreciative of Leones’s work, and some even made the effort to comment on their apocalyptic version of Manila too. 

Netizen Nel Trono edited this photo filled with battle heroes defeating COVID-19.

COVID superheroes
Image credit: Nel Trono 

Carl Limongco made Leones’s work his phone’s wallpaper because to him, it was just “so bad-ass.”

Leones's artwork as a wallpaper
Image credit: Carl Limongco 


Inspired from Brazilian buffalo culture


The artwork was inspired from Marajo Island in Brazil, where Brazilian military officers are accompanied by water buffalos as they patrol. They have been doing so since the 1990s as water buffalos are common in the island. 


Filipino artists during COVID-19


There’s no doubt that the Philippines is brimming with local art talents. We hope that Filipino artists like Argyl Leones, with enough support from the public, will get their work recognized in a wider arena soon. 

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Cover image adapted from: Argyl Leones

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