Sunday, March 1, 2009

DARKSTALKERS TRIBUTE SNEAK-PEEK




Last year Udon Publishing produced a nice little art book called the STREET FIGHTER TRIBUTE. This book was a collection of hundreds of pieces of fan art based around Capcom's Street Fighter video game series, culled from submissions they received after putting out a call for entries. I had a couple of friends whose pieces were published in the book, and I would have loved to contribute, but I found out about the contest only a couple of days before the deadline and it was too late for me to submit anything.

A few months ago, I found out they were doing the same thing with Capcom's DARKSTALKERS game series (which I'm also a fan of), so I made sure to get started early so I wouldn't miss the deadline this time. I initially resolved to do several illustrations based on a few of my favorite characters, thinking I had plenty of time to complete at least three illustrations, increasing my chances of getting published. I sketched out poses and character designs and worked out 4 illustrations that I wanted to complete. Alas, my various freelance pursuits caught up with me and I was only able to finish one of the planned 4 pieces. So much for planning, but I gotta put the paying jobs first.

Anyway, the characters I chose to illustrate were Rikuo, Q-Bee, Hsien-Ko (my favorite), and Anakaris. I figured there would be a ton of entries featuring Morrigan and Felicia (probably the two most popular characters), so I wanted to avoid them. The one I managed to complete was Rikuo. I would have loved to finish Hsien-Ko, and I had a pretty cool pose for Q-Bee, but it wasn't meant to be.

I'm not going to post the whole image here, as Udon "recommends" against spoiling the images before the book is published, but I will provide a tiny peek (one of the inks and one of the colors), and you can bet I'll post the entire image here once the book is published (or sooner, if I find out the piece didn't make it in).

5 comments:

Dustin d'Arnault said...

Hey bro I am positive your piece will get in. That photo kills me by the way. Take it easy man.

Unknown said...

Awesome! :) I can't wait to see your piece!

I will have to post a 'sneak peek' of mine as well - I drew Hsien-ko.

Caleb Prochnow said...

Your piece is gonna get in.... I'm upset that Udon and other book publishers have figured out how to prey upon artist and make money off of sweat they don't have to pay for. All they have to do is disguise their need for a certain type of art as "A Call for Entries" and we spend countless hours working for free.

Jon Roscetti said...

Looks fun. I miss the spirit of the older capcom fighting games.

Adam Tamte Volker said...

Man I was just exposed to Darkstalkers once I was interning in Orlando, but hot dawg it was fun to waste time too. Really beautiful animation too! Love that photo of you, I feel like screaming

"CAUGHT YOU!!!"

stoked to see the piece by the way. I always liked that vampire chick...what was her name again? Oh and the snowman guy.

-Tamte

(I went and looked it up...Morrigan! damn she was hot)