The Kraken Strikes!

"The Kraken Strikes!"

My latest piece for Gallery 1988 is a tribute to one of my favorite video games of all time Shining Force 2. One of the most memorable fights in the game was when your party gets ambushed by a Kraken.

This is what it looked like...

 but this is what it FELT like...

Seriously, the fight is intense. It happens fairly early in the game, but it basically represents the point where the game stops playing nice.

I always loved this fight though, partly because it was so challenging, but mostly because it was so unique. Up until this point your fighting small bands of monsters, or the occasional army, but this fight was an army of one monster. The mechanics of the game allow for this monster to be treated as 11 different units all working together to systematically dismantle your team.

Plus the design of the Kraken was just so freaking cool.

Here's a video of the battle in question in case your interested. Fair warning, the video is chock full of swears and angry yelling. Like I said, it was a hard fight.

I loved working on this piece. It was sort of a rush job, less than two weeks from first sketch to finished painting, but that really forced me to be better with my time and commit to my choices. 

I really tried to push the contrast in this piece as well, partly as a time saving measure, but mainly as an exercise in working graphically. I've had a bad habit over the years of shying away from contrast in my paintings, never really pushing things all the way to full black in the shadows and full white in the highlights, so this was a chance to do just that.

Honestly, I really like how this piece turned out. It may be one of my favorite pieces to date.

I also took daily photos of this piece while I was working on it, and I'll be posting a process gif soon.