January 18, 2018, 09:58 PM 
You might have seen these following illustrations of an unusually muscular Sang Nila Utama shared on your Facebook feed.
Here he is:
It's as if Sang Nila Utama wasn't just hunting animals but hitting the gym while chugging shakes, getting the gains and a ripped bod of fantastical proportions.
While it's refreshing, it's also pretty curious to most of us who have grown up looking at much slimmer depictions of the Palembang prince.
To find out the story behind this particular iteration of the supposed founder of Singapura, Mothership.sg spoke to Joseph Tey, the artist behind this particularly swole Sang Nila Utama.
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Sang Nila Utama's be-gain-ings
Tey is currently a Visual Design Manager with Scholastic, a book publisher.
The Sang Nila Utama illustrations were done six years ago when Tey was working at Marshall-Cavendish as an assistant art manager.
The illustrations were done for a primary school social studies textbook, Inquiring Into Our World 4A.
When asked how the concept for Sang Nila Utama's design came about, Tey said:
It’s been quite long. As far as I remembered it was over discussion with the MOE (Ministry of Education) team. This time round they gave us more creative freedom than before as they were trying a new approach for social studies. Trying to engage kids more with popular culture, such as comics art style, hence we have this in publication today.
I recalled they were difficult at first with the other art styles we provided previously, as they were too generic and boring like the old textbooks. That’s when we went crazy and came up with this style, and another which was a cartoony caricature style. If you have the book, you should be able to see a few styles within. One with a very cute (Stamford) Raffles. I drew that too.
Good taste
Tey also mentioned that it was "tricky that we do not end up drawing it in a way that it trivialises the founding fathers" and the drawings "must be done in good taste".
The final design of Sang Nila Utama that we see printed in the textbook is rather close to the original sketch concepts, though they may have been some tweaks along the way.
Of course, the whole textbook was not illustrated by Tey alone, but by a team, as there are several other illustrations which other artists had worked on.
Not everyone is a fan and it's okay
Tey took to the overnight virality of Sang Nila Utama quite humbly.
He said:
[It] was really funny to see it go viral. Quite glad it made people laugh. Of course I am also certain not everyone is a fan and it’s okay. We are all free to think what we think.
Being an artist for more than 15 years, I think it’s always jittery when you present a new concept or artwork. But that’s part of the job.
We're sure those jitters have since subsided.
Since Sang Nila Utama's stature is likened to that of comic characters, Tey thinks that "there will be a market" if a "Singapore fighters" type of game is created, which features legendary characters.
This was after he was asked if he thinks that there was a particular pop culture universe he could bring this muscular Sang Nila Utama into.
And who knows, we'd love to see a particularly strong Sang Nila Utama pitting his brawn against, say, VR man.
The possibilities are endless.
If you like Tey's works, you can check out his portfolio here.
He's also the artist for his wife's book, Tea in Pajamas.
Top image an illustration by Joseph Tey, from the Inquiring Into Our World 4A social studies textbook
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