DMC5SE - Bury the Light

"Bury the light deep within!
Cast aside, there's no coming home!"
- from "Bury the Light" by Casey Edwards

Vergil, V, Griffon, Shadow and Nightmare from Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition © CAPCOM

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I had finished the original art (V1) in September 2020.
Only to realize a few months later, the wings that sprouted behind V when Vergil stabbed himself are not exactly their wings per se, but rather the enemy demon's scythes that were in front of them; I had only watched the DMC5SE announcement trailer and the trailer was grainy at best when paused during that moment.

So in November 2020, I rectified it by replacing the wrong wings with V's Royal Fork instead (energy-based weapons in the form of his cane), and fan them out to resemble wings. Coincidentally, I made the major change just in time for the actual release of the game in that same month.

Two important design decisions were made here:
1/ V didn't have his trademark tattoos because he's being released from Vergil through the [World of V] move, and his familiars emerged at about the same time.
2/ The particular arrangement of the familiars is loosely based on the Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. "Father" here being Griffon because V met him 1st (based on their encounter as shown in the manga [Visions of V], "Son" being Shadow because V met him after defeating the spider familiar, and "Holy Spirit" at the top being Nightmare's eye (because he's too big to be included, and most media usually portray his eye to indicate his presence). That said, I intentionally positioned Nightmare's eye behind V's head to sort of make it like V's halo - to subtly show V is the human-counterpart and rational side of Vergil (the "good" part).
3/ Because of that - as Urizen is the dark side (aka full-blown "devil" part of Vergil), it makes sense to give V the halo and the wings (in the form of Royal Fork) to represent the "human" or in this case, "angel" part of Vergil.