There were quite a few opinions regarding my comments last week, which isn't too surprising. Some of them were back-slapping "word up, dude!" agreements, and others were fierce criticisms. Admittedly the complaints were comparitively few, but I'm open to differing opinions. That's why this week's Sketch Artist update features my attempt to do (dramatic chord)... Something New.

For one thing, it seems almost everyone (whether supportive or contrary) misunderstood my stance on Final Fantasy. I am not opposed to Final Fantasy art - I've done my own fair share, in fact. I love the games, FMV and all, and have completed every US-released title in the series -- with gusto, baby. Tiny versions of the ladies of FF8 share monitor duty on my computer with a plastic Dewback lizard. I have been tarred and feathered by violent Square-haters for liking the series. Squall's pain is my pain, friends.

So, my suggestion to consider topics besides Final Fantasy art was basically intended to make it a little more likely for your work to see daylight, and more likely to stand out. Realize that if there are four pictures of Sephiroth looking delicate and anemic in a given SA update, one more picture of a wan Sephiroth is going to seem far less unique than an image of, say, Denim Powell beating up his buddy Vice. Also, if a single person submits 8 pieces of art from a single game at once, not all of them will go up at once; I try to keep pieces for later, but some of them get lost in the shuffle, so you may want to hold off on sending half a dozen pics at once. These are simply things to keep in mind when sending away your work for consideration.

As for the content at hand, I'm experimenting with an expansion on the Spoiler Gallery principle by breaking the artwork into semi-related galleries and listing the represented titles on this very page. This time I sorta bunched stuff together; next time I may try spreading some of the more ubiquitous series, like Chrono and FF, across multiple galleries to fool everyone into thinking they're not so common. If you have any other novel ideas, send them in; I'm open to different approaches, and the worst I could do is choose not to use your idea.

So let me know what you think about all of this heavy stuff. And of course, be sure to offer feedback to the featured artists if you're so inclined - simply click someone's name to view his or her contact information. Admittedly I'm running behind this week and it may be a few days before I've compiled all the current profiles... d'oh!

See you next week - same(ish) bat-time, same bat-website.

   -- J. "RAGE." Parish.