Hotwheel
Pedro Ferreira
On May 23, 2025, I had the great honor of being the first to interview Sorcery: Contested Realm artist Pedro Ferreira and introduce him to the art-loving Sorcery community.
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As we approach the hotly anticipated Gothic expansion set at the time of this writing, "Hotwheel" is one of the first card reveals we have seen for Pedro in his big Sorcery debut.
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I caught up with Pedro recently and asked him about the art direction he received from Sorcery TCG creator and Art Director, Erik Olofsson, and what inspired the concept between this striking painting. Here is that story in Pedro's words:
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"...the main source of inspiration for this illustration was of course the Bonewheel Skeleton from Dark Souls and the Breaking wheels from Berserk, with a touch of Ghost rider to warm things up. I remember I really wanted to indicate violence and speed of movement, as if this fire wheel was rolling down the hill and directly coming at us. I wanted the viewer to picture how brutal an encounter with those spikes would be, and that he would probably fall down the slope while on fire. Pretty horrendous stuff."
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​Here are the initial concept sketches that Pedro created as he worked out the illustration details.
Dark Souls is a fantays action role-playing game series developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai. The Dark Souls were found in the Catacombs within the game. They were vicious enemies that attacked by rolling toward their targets. They appear as skeleton torsos strapped to large spiked wheels, deal massive damage, and are one of the most infamously notorious ambushes in the game.​
Berserk is a dark fantasy manga seires created by Kentaro Miura that began in 1989 and continue until Miura's death in 2021; coincidentally a time when Sorcery: Contested Realm was in its early formative years.
Berserk has many influences that have manifested in Dark Souls.​
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The story explores themes of fate, ambition, and survival. It follows the story of a battle-hardened mercenary wielding an enormous sword, who struggles against human and monstrous foes while battling a demon-infested medieval world (fittingly "Gothic"!).
"Breaking wheels", also called "Catherine Wheels", have interesting real life history. They were medieval execution devices used to break a condemned person's bones. This was often done in public, as both punishment and for the public spectacle.
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The victim was tied to a large wooden wheel, and their limbs were shattered with a club or iron bar before the body was left to die from shock, exposure, or further blows.
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This extremely brutal form of punishment was pervasive across Europe until the 18th and 19th centuries, and later became a grim icon in art and literature, as we saw manifest in Berserk and Dark Souls...
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Pedro's last reference is Ghost Rider; the iconic Marvel Comics antihero who first appeared in 1972, and is best known for his flaming skull and supernatural motorcycle. As Pedro members, this was the flavor and the flair to "warm things up" and bring his striking concept to life with the aspect of intensity and flame!
