Happy Chinese New Year! Well, in a couple days... And due to the occasion, I've got to make a little new year's resolution, brought on by my looking back at the last few updates and seeing that Sketch Artist got only two updates in January. I'm seriously going to try to do better about updating, and if I don't do so at least once a week, all of you are welcome to write me and yell at me for it. If I'm incredibly busy, as the case has been for the last couple of weeks, at the very least, angry emails will tell me it's time to hand that week's update off to someone who can get it done. Such an incredible group of artists deserves better than to be recognized intermittently, and I apologize.

   In other stress-inducing news, I had nearly an entire week since the last update in which either one of my email addresses wasn't working or was not sending or receiving emails from certain popular domains, including AOL. This resulted in several problems on my end, and probably some for contributors as well. But all seems to be fine now, so if you happened to get error messages or returned mail when sending in a submission, feel free to try again.

   Now, today's update... J.J. McCullough starts us off by monopolizing the GIA's supply of Earthbound fan art, having submitted our first two pieces ever from the game. Annie Felis' "Bum Rush?" is a cute and amusing look at the reactions of a FFVI party to Sabin's ultimate technique, and pulpy is wonderfully eccentric as ever with a piece entitled "i have the state video". Lord Itlan and Ammo give us pictures of the two main FFVII females in "Aerith Dreams" and "Anxious Heart", respectively, both of which show a side of the girls that aren't so often touched on in fan art. Kellilla's Edea is drawn with style and intricacy, and Rey's second fan art submission, "Everlasting Green," is a simpler but detailed take on Squall. The first gallery is finished off with two beautiful portraits of Rinoa and Seifer, by Duncan Burris and Nutz.

   In what's probably another first, Landale portrays Phoebe, one of the rarely-seen characters from FF: Mystic Quest to start off the second gallery. After a bit of an absence, Blademoor returns to the Sketch Artist pages with an adorable picture of Grandia's Feena. Kouryuu does likewise with a picture of the ultra-kawaii Charlotte from SD3, in the aptly named "Happy Happy!" Welcome back, guys! Megan Kirk gives us another highly realistic portrait today, this time of Lufia's Arty in "Through the Darkness". Wulfmune contributes two exceptional pieces this time around, featuring Lunar's Alex and Luna in a peaceful moment, and Wild Arms 2's Tim, and fellow Estrigious gal Becky contributes a really cool and humorous piece, "Lara and the Snake part 2". Xellos_Rogue's "The Awakening of a Numan" is a present to fans of Phantasy Star's Rika, and Terra-ist shows her great talent for drawing fantasy beasts in "Spikey", inspired by a boss from Secret of Mana.

   -- Andrea Hartmann, who just threw your keys in the water... and will be amazed if anyone gets that reference. Except Tami. ;)