John Romero modeled the iconic box-art pose for the original Doom by aggressively ripping off his own shirt and forcing an illustrator to take reference photos of him flexing with a toy gun.

A closer look

John Romero modeled the iconic box-art pose for the original Doom by aggressively ripping off his own shirt and forcing an illustrator to take reference photos of him flexing with a toy gun. The hired bodybuilder model simply could not figure out how to pose like a space marine fighting off a horde of demonic entities, so Romero got visibly frustrated, stepped in, and showed him how to properly act like a hyper-violent badass. The resulting image of a muscular dude blasting demons while standing on a desolate Martian landscape became one of the most recognizable pieces of art in gaming history. There is something profoundly hilarious about knowing the defining image of nineties testosterone and digital machismo is literally just an exhausted programmer throwing a temper tantrum with a plastic prop