Okay, my computer seems to like messing with my mind today. I have the downloaded images to prove that I did in fact receive submissions from a couple people, but the email in which they submitted them and gave the info is nowhere on my hard drive. So there's a couple less pieces here than I'd intended to post, and I'll be sending out some email asking about them within a few days. Computer, I am not hallucinating.

   The first gallery starts off with Simon Woon's appropriately named Arc the Lad 3 cast picture, "A Brand New Start". Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross each get a piece today; Minmei portrays Magus, looking quite confident and serene in the midst of his spellcasting, and Serge smiles in a friendly manner, drawn by Ghost Chen-Chen. "Dragoon Kain" stands tall and proud in a detailed pencil sketch by Kayin. Kristen Smirnov's "Angel Wing" portrays Rinoa in the midst of her coolest-looking limit break. (Although I have to admit to kinda liking Angelo Cannon too... though in a different way.) CHILD's portrait of Seifer is a striking one, capturing the somewhat violent aspect of his character nicely. Alex Perry contributes a lifelike, moody portrait of Squall, and finally Petra Rödig's "Jurassic Fantasy 8" shows Squall in a slightly more... unnerving moment.

   And in the second gallery, the very different characters of Squall and Rinoa are summed up in Maggie's "I don't need anyone..." Silverelf's "Yellow Chocobo" very cutely captures one of those crazy birds out on a run. Parasite Eve 2 anticipation is running high, and two works based on the original find a home in today's Sketch Artist -- a dark, sinister CG of Aya and Eve from Ghost Chen-Chen, and a loose, carefree portrait of Aya from Khari J. Sampson. The latter has two more pictures in today's update, a very funny Tales of Destiny piece called "Search Gald!" and an action-packed (and therefore rather unusual) shot of Xenogears' Maria Balthasar in "Maria Rides into Action!" Minmei's portrait of Queen Zephyr against the backdrop of Shevat is simply beautiful, and Xellos_Rogue portrays two characters who are quite different but have a few things in common, in "Bart and Sigurd."

   Special Halloween notice: Anyone else dressing up as game characters this year? As costuming is an art form, and cosplay is a growing interest of mine, I'd love to see some costumes people have made, particularly those that fall under the GIA's areas of coverage (RPGs, adventure games, strategy, puzzle games...). Maybe I can put up a costume gallery sometime in the next month. And if I get enough people to send in pictures, maybe I can get some staff members to post their Halloween pics as well. Mwahaha... is that motivation? ;)

   -- Andrea Hartmann