Cook & Bekker, a Dutch art dealer has launched the first wave of new, officially licensed SEGA art. The first wave includes: Phantasy Star by Kilian Eng Golden Axe by Gerald Parel Streets of Rage by Julien Renoult Jet Set Radio by Roman van der Haven Shinobi by Emmanuel Malin Each costs $99 unframed. More to come this Summer.
Streets of Rage and Shinobi are pretty good. The others are so so. Jet Set Radio is an abomination. Might get a couple of these when I move to my new place.
One of the guys that works for the company that's making these is posting in the NeoGAF thread. He has stated more prints are coming including: Sonic and Shenmue! I'm going to buy a load of these and get a whole awesome Sega collection going. Moving soon so these would be perfect.
Reading through the rest of his responses now. He says there's a Sonic print "in the works" that is based on Sonic 2 and includes Tails. Reading between the lines that might mean Sonic is getting multiple prints though he doesn't say that outright; just hints towards it. A Virtua Fighter print is also coming. Not confirmed but extremely "likely". Also the artists they're choosing to develop these are quite high calibre in game related fields. For example the Streets of Rage print was designed by the lead concept artist for Sunset Overdrive. He's also polling requests amongst the users of NeoGAF so if you have an account on there you can post and make requests. I listed some hardcore Sega games like Wonderboy, Alex Kidd and Jet Set Radio Future and also requested the Stardust Speedway Metal Sonic race from Sonic CD. Chances are probably quite low any of those will happen but thought it was worth a shot. Ristar sounds more likely because most of the users requested it so hopefully a Ristar print will also happen. Keep an eye on the NeoGAF thread if you want to see which new prints are coming. He's pretty active in the thread.
I got excited about the Jet Set Radio one until I saw it. It doesn't.do kuch of a job of catching the spirit of the game and it's fugly to boot. Won't be setting aside any more for it. Certainly not a whopping £75. I'll just keep my eyes open for the the Sonic one. Hearing that it's based on S2 is a little disappointing as I'd have liked something that could include more characters, but hey it'll probably still look amazing.
I work for a graphics company - I know how much prints etc can cost and they obviously can be expensive but them prices are a little ridiculous to me.............
It's more due to the fact the artists have some clout in the industry, although that certainly doesn't save the JSR one.
I don't know how I feel about the first run. Not sure I'm feeling it. But, I will be excited for the Shenmue and Sonic ones
New-ish art print: Shenmue by John Sweeney (Concept artist for The Last of Us and Uncharted 4) Also, Paul Veer/Pietepiet (artist who's worked on a lot of Vlambeer's games including Nuclear Throne) is doing the Sonic print. Here are a couple of his unused/unfinished designs. If you look through his Tumblr you can see that he's done Sonic fan-art as well, including this:
Previews for both Virtua Fighter and Sonic are available (prints coming next week). Space Harrier is next in line after these. Kind of disappointed in the Sonic one to be honest. These prints are a great idea in theory but lacking in execution IMO.
I actually really like the look of the Sonic one. Pietepiet's the best at his art when he uses his own style so I'm glad that he went with it here.
I'm definitely going to shell out for that Sonic one, yessiree. It's surprising that SEGA would permit the use of the a Classic/Modern blend like that. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are in their Classic forms, and it looks like the rest have been "Classicified". And wow, it's actually a shame that neither of those other two designs got used. I adore both of them. Angel Island being struck by the Death Egg is especially nice piece of art.
Welp, I'm buying the Sonic one. No buts about that. Honestly I like the Modern Retro hybrid designs for the Chaotix better, I never cared for their old designs (they had those weird circles for shoulders and such, it was odd).
