Mobile publisher Gameloft gets a lot of bad press for the way its games borrow visual and design cues from popular console titles. Its popular NOVA series, for example, is really HALO in all but name.
Or so it is by the time it hits your phone's screen. At the concept art stage, things are looking a little better!
Romanian artist Alexandru Negoita is the man behind these great pieces of concept art for both NOVA games, and reveal that alongside his original stuff, he was drawing on more influences than just Halo. There's some Mass Effect on show here as well, and if you look hard enough, a couple of Lost Planet-looking scenes as well.
As you'd expect! Find me an artist, any artist working in games who hasn't taken at least a little something from Star Wars, Aliens, Mass Effect or Halo and I'll buy you a cookie.
Remember, good artists borrow. Great artists steal!
You can find more of Alexandru's stuff at the site below, including some Witcher fan art and a decidedly sexy (and NSFW) Red Sonja.
UPDATE - Nicholas got in touch to let us know that the snow and forest images (the ones with the same little guy facing off against...something) were labelled as NOVA images on his blog but aren't actually part of that project. They're part of something else!
To see the larger pics in all their glory, either click the "expand" icon on the gallery screen or right click and "open link in new tab".
Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!
You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at plunkett@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.