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Description
This is belated by 2 days, but this is in celebration of the 18th anniversary of Crash Bandicoot. I only found out on the day of, so I got right to work on this.

Honestly, given the size of my gallery at the moment, I'm not thrilled about having 2 pieces of Crash fanart. I'd rather have more stuff to showcase, but the gallery will grow in time. I couldn't not do some fanart for the occasion. This is the series that I first played (aside from games on my father's Atari 2600), starting with Crash 2. It's what got me into "gaming". This series is very dear to my heart, and I wish Naughty Dog was still in control of the franchise.

I really enjoyed doing this one. I typically hate coloring my lineart, but every now and then I get an idea for a color scheme and it just works for me and is really fun to do.

This is a mixed media piece. The characters were drawn with pencil and inking pen, and scanned in where the composition was adjusted and the background was made and everything was colored digitally.

Obviously this is based off of the style of the Naughty Dog era games (the only ones in the series that mater. Although.... TwinSanity was an ok game with some really good design aspects). Even confined to the first 3 games, there's lots of ways Crash and co. can be drawn. What I did was combine a mixed interpretation of the in-game polygonal models with concept and promotional art from the original games to get the most distilled version of the characters that are as "true" to my vision of them possible. This is the character I think of when I think of Crash.

Part of what got me started as an artist is drawing Crash Bandicoot. I now only do a piece of fanart every 3 or so years now for this franchise, but from the time I was 6 or 7 all the way through middle school, I drew dozens and dozens of sketches of the characters. I've been drawing since I was 3 or 4, but some of my earliest memories of doing art is copying the illustrations in the game manual for Crash 2. Similarly, the concept art for the first 3 games was a major inspiration for me. I still adore all the concept art for the PS1 Crash game. Every piece of it. The character designs, the environment concepts, the promotional pieces. Naughty Dog had some fantastic artists. I owe this series a lot in my life. Considering how big an impact art and gaming have on my life, and the fact that it was Crash Bandicoot that was a major launching point for both of those things, I got very nostalgic and sentimental over the character and the games. Even when being as objective as possible, I think Crash 2 and 3 are some of the best designed platformers of all time (full confession: I don't love the first game all that much!). Likewise, CTR is one of the best designed carts ever made. Years before Uncharted and the Last of Us and even Jak, some of us already knew the champions of game creation that Naughty Dog were.

I'm happy enough with this one to think it a fitting tribute to the series I love so much. I'll be playing it every couple of years until the day that I die. Happy B-Day man.

Tools: Pencil on sketch paper, inking done using Faber-Castell PITT artist pens. Background and color done in Photoshop

Description
This is belated by 2 days, but this is in celebration of the 18th anniversary of Crash Bandicoot. I only found out on the day of, so I got right to work on this.

Honestly, given the size of my gallery at the moment, I'm not thrilled about having 2 pieces of Crash fanart. I'd rather have more stuff to showcase, but the gallery will grow in time. I couldn't not do some fanart for the occasion. This is the series that I first played (aside from games on my father's Atari 2600), starting with Crash 2. It's what got me into "gaming". This series is very dear to my heart, and I wish Naughty Dog was still in control of the franchise.

I really enjoyed doing this one. I typically hate coloring my lineart, but every now and then I get an idea for a color scheme and it just works for me and is really fun to do.

This is a mixed media piece. The characters were drawn with pencil and inking pen, and scanned in where the composition was adjusted and the background was made and everything was colored digitally.

Obviously this is based off of the style of the Naughty Dog era games (the only ones in the series that mater. Although.... TwinSanity was an ok game with some really good design aspects). Even confined to the first 3 games, there's lots of ways Crash and co. can be drawn. What I did was combine a mixed interpretation of the in-game polygonal models with concept and promotional art from the original games to get the most distilled version of the characters that are as "true" to my vision of them possible. This is the character I think of when I think of Crash.

Part of what got me started as an artist is drawing Crash Bandicoot. I now only do a piece of fanart every 3 or so years now for this franchise, but from the time I was 6 or 7 all the way through middle school, I drew dozens and dozens of sketches of the characters. I've been drawing since I was 3 or 4, but some of my earliest memories of doing art is copying the illustrations in the game manual for Crash 2. Similarly, the concept art for the first 3 games was a major inspiration for me. I still adore all the concept art for the PS1 Crash game. Every piece of it. The character designs, the environment concepts, the promotional pieces. Naughty Dog had some fantastic artists. I owe this series a lot in my life. Considering how big an impact art and gaming have on my life, and the fact that it was Crash Bandicoot that was a major launching point for both of those things, I got very nostalgic and sentimental over the character and the games. Even when being as objective as possible, I think Crash 2 and 3 are some of the best designed platformers of all time (full confession: I don't love the first game all that much!). Likewise, CTR is one of the best designed carts ever made. Years before Uncharted and the Last of Us and even Jak, some of us already knew the champions of game creation that Naughty Dog were.

I'm happy enough with this one to think it a fitting tribute to the series I love so much. I'll be playing it every couple of years until the day that I die. Happy B-Day man.

Tools: Pencil on sketch paper, inking done using Faber-Castell PITT artist pens. Background and color done in Photoshop