--THE HILLS HAVE FIRES--

Pretty much all of Southern California is burning to the ground right now, and when I got to work yesterday the entire office was coated in a fine mist of dust and ash. We're only a couple miles from the fires in Irvine, but because we're on the 'safe' side, we still have the pleasure of coming in to work. In the midst of all this, I'm neck-deep in the graphic novel I'm doing for our upcoming game. I've been roaming all across the interwebs for possible artists to work with, and I've found a lot of really talented people who I'm sure you've never heard of. And since I haven't made a post in forever, and don't have much to say on the subject of my own job, I figured I'd share some of the cool stuff I've found. A good few of these are DeviantArtists, so I couldn't find/didn't look for real names. Oh well.

What can I say? Big robots are cool, and I love the detail put into this one. More here.

Pretty sure this is inspired by Shadow of the Colossus. I love the lighting on it. More here.

This is actually a real-life acquaintance of mine. He does very dark, moody stuff. When I first saw this drawing, a fully-formed character bio just leapt out at me, and I've since included it in a world I'm working on right now. More here.

I've always been a fan of urban fantasy, and this just has a perfect tone. More here.

Similar to the last one, this has a very sad-but-beautiful feel to it that I find so delightful. The girl that did this is now an artist up at BioWare in Canada. She's pretty awesome. More here and here.

I like how the colors reflect the subject matter. The delicate color balance perfectly represents that airy butterfly/fairy feel. More here and here. The first site's in French, but just click around and you'll find everything no problem.

A really nice blend of sci-fi elements with what would appear to be a very fantasy-based world. More here.

I very much enjoy that haunting children's storybook feel, and this piece captures that perfectly. More here.

Halloween's almost here, and I love Nightmare Before Christmas, so this seemed like an appropriate piece. More here.

This one gives me chills every time I look at it. It immediately creates an entire world in my mind, and it's not exactly the most appealing world I've ever seen. More here.

If you're here from the Penny Arcade boards, you might recognize this art, which is by a dude who hangs out in the Artist's Corner. A lot of his stuff is very cartoonish, and not at all in a bad way. More here and here.

This one is called 'Prometheus' and put a whole different spin on the classical myth. What if this is what Prometheus had to go through to get his fire? Pretty intense, I'd say. More here.

All of this guy's pieces are at once sickeningly cute and wholly unsettling. I enjoy that. More here.

Most of these pieces make me rethink the reality of this world, but this is one of the few that places me in a totally alien environment. More here and here.

Just a very slick, modern approach to robots and technology in general. Hipper than I could ever hope to be. More here.

I would absolutely love to see this as a boss in some fancy-pants action/adventure game. More here.

I'm not usually a fan of 'high fantasy' type art (not that it's bad, it's just not my thing), but I've always been fascinated by masks and the presentation here is top-notch. Also it reminded me of Hexadecimal from the TV show ReBoot, and that's never a bad thing. More here.

That's about it for now. Hopefully you found something here or in the linked material that gives you a little spark of imagination or creativity, because I think they're all very awesome and worthy of some attention.

Oh, and one other thing. I think we all understand just how horrible wildfires are for people and how quickly they can decimate homes and lives. That being said, if you ever find yourself near an outbreak like we're having right now, take it all in. There is a certain destructive beauty in fire on a grand scale. The sun struggling through the hanging smoke to cast an eerie blood-red glow across everything at sunset, the rising orange glow of fires miles away in the middle of the night, the flecks of ash and paper and burnt leaves floating past as you drive to work; these grant an insight into a stranger world than most people care to witness that any writer would do well to experience and file away, in case they ever want to do any post-apocalyptic or biblical work. It hasn't been a pleasant experience, but it's certainly been a valuable one.