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Culture
Some Kick-Ass Robot Designs From One of Hawken’s Artists
Multiplayer shooter Hawken snuck into our collective megacity last year and stole our robotic hearts. Sadly, it’s been a very long time since we heard or saw anything about the game. To satisfy both yours and our appetite for more hot giant mech fighting action, then, here’s a collection of mechs, tanks, robots and other…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 3, 2012 -
Culture
The Half-Eaten Valve Art of Peter König
Peter König is a concept art legend. Over the past quarter of a century his creature designs, sculptures and animation work have been featured in blockbuster hits like Jurassic Park, Starship Troopers and Cloverfield. Which is all well and good, but he’s also spent the last four years working as a concept artist, modeller and…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 1, 2012 -
Culture
If Only Driving Games Actually Looked This Cool
The ATV series of driving games have always had their following, but there’s never been much to make the really stand out from the crowd. Which is the great thing about looking at concept art, because it’s here that you can see that, at some point in their development, the ATV games looked (or at…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 31, 2012 -
Culture
Back From the Dead
The first big release week of 2012 gives us Final Fantasy XIII-2, NeverDead and SoulCalibur V. Downloadable content includes an extension for Dead Island Tuesday • Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3, 360) • NeverDead (PS3, 360) • Puddle (PS3) • SoulCalibur V (PS3, 360) Wednesday • Dead Island: Ryder White (PC, PS3, 360) • Rhythm Party…
By Owen Good Published January 29, 2012 -
Culture
Sunday Comics: Better With Kinect
Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik published Jan. 23.—Read more of Penny Arcade Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Jan. 23.—Read more of Awkward Zombie…
By Owen Good Published January 29, 2012 -
Culture
One Does Not Simply Design Badass Lord of the Rings Characters
Well, actually, one does if one is Wes Burt, concept artist at Massive Black, whose recent work for Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online is well worth sharing. We’ve featured Wes’ work before here on Fine Art. If you haven’t seen it, you really should Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 26, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
Cock’in. This was a Real Game, Once.
Cock’in. For the Commodore 64 and Spectrum. You take the eggs, and then the fish bites you on the elbow, and then you wear chicken hats, and what? Oh, that’s just the box art. The actual game had you playing as a cock, protecting your brood of eggs from things like rats and foxes, and…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2012 -
Culture
Some Burly Dudes From Mass Effect 3 (and Some Mass Effect Guns)
As a principal artist at BioWare, and before that EA, Rodrigue Pralier has built (and dressed) some pretty badass game characters over the years, up to and including a certain Commander Shepard. Working on the Mass Effect series Pralier has helped build some cool models and costumes, including Shepard in some Mass Effect 2 DLC…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 24, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallThey Don’t Make Games Like Strike Commander Any More
Before Chris Roberts went crazy and started making terrible movies, he was the genius behind some of the greatest PC games ever made. Some, like Wing Commander, are still remembered fondly today. Others, like Strike Commander, sadly are not. So successful was Roberts’ Wing Commander series, and/or so intent was the man on telling story-driven…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 22, 2012 -
Culture
Sunday Comics: What’s Your Favorite Activity?
Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Virtual Shackles by Jeremy Vinar and Mike Fahmie published Jan. 18.—Read more of Virtual Shackles Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Jan. 16.—Read more of Awkward Zombie…
By Owen Good Published January 22, 2012 -
Culture
Project Zomboid’s Concept Art Also Blows Up Aircraft Carriers
French artist Remi, aka Afekay, has landed a rather pleasant little gig doing the concept art for work-in-progress zombie survival sim Project Zomboid Coming out of mobile games, which is where the decidedly non-Zombie stuff you’ll see here comes from (specifically Gameloft’s Dungeon Hunter 3 and Modern Combat 3), Afekay’s art for Zomboid lends a…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 20, 2012 -
Culture
Building BioShock, StarCraft & God of War Characters
We usually feature the work of men and women on Fine Art who design characters. Today, we’ll look at someone who actually builds them. Johnny Xiao has worked on series like StarCraft, Killzone, The Witcher, BioShock, God of War and even Fallout, turning a whole bunch of polygons into characters you love, hate or just…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 19, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallWhy Conker Went From Cute to Crass
Rare’s Conker used to be a nice little squirrel. He was cute, he had polite friends, and he was going to be starring in a very Nintendo platformer for a Nintendo console. Yet as you probably know, that’s not how things ended up. In the late 90s, as Rare was following up their success with…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 18, 2012 -
Culture
Christian Bravery’s Concept Art Kills Zones, Borders Lands
Christian Bravery, who founded and still works at concept art studio Leading Light, has been in the business for over two decades In that time, he’s helped shape the appearance of franchises as diverse as LittleBigPlanet, Killzone, Borderlands, Fable, NBA Jam and XCOM Sadly much of that good stuff is, as is typical in the…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 18, 2012 -
CultureTotal RecallLet’s Watch the Intro to Syndicate, Circa 1993
The single best piece of video game news today is that the original Syndicate is this Thursday going on sale over on Good Old Games for $6. You’ll get more fun out of that game than you will most games costing 10x as much. So let’s celebrate. Here’s the intro to the original 1993 game,…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 17, 2012 -
Culture
Game Art From Star Wars, Command & Conquer, Call of Duty & More
Thomas A. Szakolczay is a video game concept artist. With twelve years experience across some of the biggest franchises in the business, if you can’t tell me you’ve played a game he’s worked on, you’re probably lying. He’s been employed by the likes of Activision, Capcom, Epic, EA, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Warner Bros., Lucasarts and…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 17, 2012 -
CultureTotal Recall
My First Nintendo “Console”
I may have explained this a few times already, but growing up in Australia in the 1980s usually meant growing up without Nintendo. The NES was here, and people bought it, but it was never the sensation it was elsewhere. Most kids/adults played on computers or Sega machines. That didn’t stop me wanting one, though.…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 15, 2012 -
Culture
Sunday Comics: Blow Me
Welcome to your Sunday read of the week’s best in web comics. Make sure to click on the expand button in the bottom right to enlarge each comic. Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich published Jan. 9.—Read more of Awkward Zombie Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira published Jan. 11.—Read more of Nerf NOW!! Penny Arcade by…
By Owen Good Published January 15, 2012