Bengus, the Vampire Savior - A 1UP classic from May 9, 2008

Friends, I shouldn't have to say one more word about Bengus, but I will. Only because I got my hands on concentrated awesomeness last weekend. If you like the Vampire / Darkstalkers series and you like Bengus, honestly, who doesn't? Then you have to get your hands on a copy of the Vampire Graphic File, ISBN978-4-86233-124-3.

For those that aren't familiar with the game, it is to the classic monster genre what Street Fighter was to legendary fighters. Capcom decided to include as many classic archetypes in the game as they could. There was a succubus, a vampire, a wolfman, Frankenstein, mummy and even gill-man. However the ones featured in the game looked nothing like the classic Universal movie monsters. The Capcom doppelgangers were kung-fu werewolves, wrestling bigfoots and undead samurai. Crazy by anyones standards.

Bengus wrapped those archetypes around his head and came up with designs that were just as unique and memorable. They also included slight nods to their original inspirations. I'm only going to show a small sampling of the illustrations. Below are his pen illustrations of the original Vampire character art compared to his final portraits years later in Vampire Savior.

Notice how bold he was with his shadows in the original Dimitry and Morrigan art. Now look at how far he had refined his style by the time he was finishing his stint producing art.

The style was clearly Bengus and yet there was the sublime genius of DaVinci behind his technique. With nothing but one color Bengus simply shines. Look at the shadows and highlights of his figures. Look carefully at the subtleties of his crosshatching technique.

Even on the more fantastic characters like Felicia and Anakaris he managed to remain playful and iconic at the same time. Look carefully at the expressions on the characters for his original art and then his latter art.

Is Felicia meowing? She has depth and weight, shape and substance. The Anakaris piece is as epic as any classic movie poster. It is part Boris Karloff and part Alex Ross and yet something else entirely. Look at the way he created the illusion of multiple sources of lighting on the head of Anakaris!

MY GOD!

There isn't an artist working in videogames that has ever filled me with such awe. Not any of the greats at Sony Santa Monica or Incog Inc. Not anybody at Nintendo or even Sega. And just when you think that Falcoon, Hyung-tae Kim or the artists at Udon are getting close you go back and reference this art. That is when you realize that the other artists aren't even in his league. Bengus set a standard. Scratch that. Bengus is the standard. He breathed life into the characters featured in Street Fighter and Vampire. He put his stamp on history. If you ever doubt that he was anything more than a cartoonist just look at this illustration of Lei-Lei and then get back to me.

Have a great weekend and let me know what you are up to!

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