As we say on IRC, "re". That case of ArtistDie that Nich mentioned last update seems to have subsided a little, no thanks to that lousy mystic. Went all the way through that cave, and that darned flapping bird just makes me fight my shadow, then spouts some mystical junk about finding my inner strength. However, the couple pf weeks spent entirely away from my email did me more good than any MD's ever done me, and without medicine and its crippling side-effects, so I guess I should thank him after all. But now I've got to climb that mountain of backlogged email as well...

   At any rate, this is one awesome collection of fan art today. For the first time in ages, the Final Fantasy VIII fan art doesn't dominate the update, and variety abounds! Even such rarely immortalized games as Jade Cocoon, Dragon Quest 4, Bust-A-Move 99, and Soul Reaver make an appearance, as well as a fair amount of FFVI pieces. Contributors as well are a mixture of old and new, with Sketch Artist veterans side by side with those contributing for the first time - in fact a couple of the pieces shown today are the artists' very first fan art ever! With such promising new artists, I imagine the web will only get more colorful and beautiful in the months and years to come.

   A reminder for those contributing... please don't send in pictures copied from official game artwork or the like, with the character exactly as they appear in the manual or something. I honestly have nothing against people who do practice drawing by copying company artwork - heck, I did that myself often when I was younger (though I actually copied Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri's work on the X-Men, if you want to get technical), and it's a great way to learn how to do certain things - but when it comes down to it, it's an effective study tool, and that's about it. Sketch Artist is for original artworks, not carbon copies. Although I've posted a couple of these copies in the past, it was because I wasn't familiar with the company art for the specific game, and didn't recognize it. :P Anything that I do recognize as copied game art will not get posted. I hope that clears up some questions people have had.

   And having said all this, I'm off to find another mystic. I hear there's a sage who lives on an island to the northeast...

   -- Andrea Hartmann - despite all my sage, I am still just a rat in a cage