I decided to give it a go with Half-Life 2, since it’s a great game held in the same high regard as Shadow of the Colossus, and has a diverse range of things which try to kill you. Although this poster isn't quite as impressive in terms of showing the enemies’ scale, I think it’s interesting to see their variety, from the zombies and Headcrabs to the organic and mechanical Combine forces. I also like the idea of the hero battling against the odds, and if you've played the game, you'll know that a just Chopper on its own can be challenging enough! Or maybe I'm just rubbish. Probably that.
I went with an orange theme, as it’s the colour most associated with the game, with black highlighting the major components and red to compliment the rest of the colour scheme. I wasn't sure whether to have Gordon holding the Gravity Gun or crowbar, but in the end the crowbar’s slightly more iconic and he looks a bit cooler in a casual stance.
I did most of the vector art in Illustrator/Flash, then had fun playing with overlay filters in Photoshop. I still wanted to keep the same kind of size progression, with the smaller bad guys at the front and the Strider looming over at the back. Drawing the Hunter (the smaller black figure at the back) was a bit of a pain, since I couldn’t find any images of it from the side to use as a reference. I tried booting up the game (which was nice, since I barely seem to play games anymore thanks to uni), but it’s difficult to get a good side-on view of a Hunter when it’s relentlessly trying to kill you. Still, I got an idea of its height; unlike the Colossus drawing, I didn't have many size references for this, but I don’t think it’s too far off from being to scale.
Anyway, I hope you like it! It’s now available in the Artwork/Store part of the site. If it turns out to be as popular as the Colossus one, I was thinking about doing a series in the same style, since they’re pretty fun to make. Let me know if you have any suggestions! Maybe I'll do one for Half-Life 3 when it comes out, providing I'm still alive. Also, please give the Facebook page a ‘like’ at the top if you’d like to keep up with art and blog posts.
Thanks!