Retro Game Artwork

One thing I like to do is look at artwork for video games.  Ah, many people may enjoy this haha, it isn't unique or anything.  Renders are fine, but I love video game illustrations most of all.  There was just something fun about picking up a game magazine back in the day and seeing a few scattered images of artwork representing characters or events in a game (but often I would be a bit upset they didn't show a particular character and then I would wonder if that particular character actually had artwork buried in some art book in Japan or an issue of Gamest).  Sometimes the manuals would have some nice little illustrations in the corners (usually of an SD or chibi form of a character performing some action), or artwork for the main characters or monsters in an rpg (and just as good: artwork for equipment and items).  And of course, fighting game roster reveals via character art was always an exciting time (especially with the yearly SNK KoF titles).  So, hopefully this thread will be a good place to share interesting artwork of games past, or showcase your favorite game artists, etc.

I will start off with my favorite video game artist, Tomomi Kobayashi.  Instead of posting her more passed-around artworks online, which you can find on numerous websites, awhile back I scanned a couple pages from my Unlimited Saga guide book.  This artwork is less prolific online due to the game's mixed reputation no doubt (the reason I scanned these particular images is I searched high and low and couldn't find them online), but no less beautiful.

Unfortunately, imgur seems to have reduced the image quality a bit, but ah well.







And here is a bonus art by Naoko Yamashita for the game (whose artwork seems to be what the basis for the actual in game character portraits are from):


I will post a variety of different artworks and artists in later messages. Please feel free to post your own favorites as well.