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Fan Art - 09/16/00 |
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News and Updates:
The most obvious change is that Kalia (that would be me) has taken over for Lorelai as the Fan Art editor. Please be
patient as all the necessary updates are taken care of.
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Greetings!
Your first question must be, "Who the heck is this Kalia and where did she come from?" I'm the
new fan art person, as if you haven't guessed. I'd like to take a few moments to wish Lorelai
well in all her endeavors and promise all of you that I will try to do at least as good a job as
she has done. She left some pretty difficult shoes to fill, and for a little while I will simply
try to take the first few tentative steps, keeping true to what this page is about, and providing
you with both an opportunity to both share your fan art with others as well as view what others
are doing themselves.
As for me, I'm an artist, writer and hardcore gamer. By "hardcore" I mean when a new game comes
out, I lose a lot of sleep, forget to eat and often take off from work just to play. As far as
credentials are concerned, I have a BFA in Illustration earned from four years of study
at School of Visual Arts in NYC. I haven't done much with the degree, but I did get a lot of
practice critiquing and learning what makes a good illustration. As the majority of fan art could
be considered illustrations, I believe this skill will help me in being fair and just when
choosing what will be shown here. One thing you should know about me is that I have a low
tolerance for people who don't read Submission Guidelines. So,
please, and I can't stress this enough, read them before sending anything.
Now, with all of that out of the way, send me your fan art! ^_^
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New Fan Art - 09/16/00
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Ashley from Vagrant Story
"ashley"
Artwork by Mechafreq
Comments: I rarely do fanart, and when I do, I have an odd tradition of doing fanart in pencil.
This time I actually colored it (using Photoshop) instead of just tinting it. The pic
is a bit customized, so it doesn't adhere perfectly to the Ashley that you see in the game.
Added the big title in just to eat up all the empty space. Made the pic just because I haven't
drawn fanart in quite some time. It was a one day rush job since I was kinda busy
(overhauling my homesite), so it lacks the detail I wanted. Background in particular is pretty crappy.
Turned out better than I expected.
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Sierra from Suikoden 2
"Prayer to the Full Moon"
Artwork by LightSoul
Comments: So Googleshng will be taking care of my picture, eh? This
is a picture of Sierra from Suikoden 2 in some weird praying pose.
Her skin turned out white because I coloured it too pale before the
scan, ah well...
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Kalia's Corner:
Every week I intend to make a statement or two about the art of a recent game, and
old game, or game art in general. If you couldn't care less
about my opinion, just skip this. But I hope to put something helpful in about game
graphics from an artist's point of view. I plan on focusing on style, technique, and
representations of characters rather than all the bells and whistles.
This week's topic is: Character Portraits
Usually the first thing that gives us the best idea of what a character is like is a
character portrait no matter how the character is represented in the game itself.
A smirk, a penetrating glare, all of these give us our first glimpse
of what lurks inside a character's mind, before we even start the game and read the first bit
of dialogue. Who could think, after seeing that first character portrait of Squall,
that he was a happy-go-lucky sort? Whether character portraits are used in a game with the
dialogue or not, they are still powerful tools to relay something about the character
to the player. However, I know I've been annoyed when character portraits were used in
the game with the dialogue and the dialogue didn't match the expression at all.
Xenogears, as one example, often succeeds (changing the character portrait to relay
the emotion) and fails ("Why is he smiling when saying that?!") using this method.
Visual artists don't have the luxury of words to express emotion to its fullest. The
emotion has to come across in a gesture or expression, however slight. A portrait is so
much more than just a picture of a character.
I'm reminded of photographs taken from the earliest days of photography where the subjects
were made to sit for hours, never smiling as the picture was taken. They looked bored and
annoyed and probably were. But then I think of the more candid photos taken when the
process had progressed a bit. Here a slight smile could say so much. It would make you
wonder, "I wonder what she's smiling about." Sort of like the enigma of the Mona Lisa. And if
we had the chance to get to know those people, we might have found out. Well, at least
when we play the game we get to find out why they are smiling, smirking, glaring,
scowling, or whatever. But it's the portrait that gets us interested first. It's what
makes us want to know more.
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