Sunday, 30 May 2021

[5th May 2021] Earlier this year, Crystal Dynamics announced that they were teaming up with a group of eleven new artists to bring a reimagined twist to the game covers we all grew up with. Lately, the studio has been celebrating "Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation", focusing on the game in livestreams and revealing new concept artwork. For this month's special piece, Crystal Dynamics approached a familiar face in the Tomb Raider circles, Andy Park.

Andy Park's work is legendary. At present, he employed at Marvel Studios as their Visual Development Supervisor working on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Before then, he worked on God of War franchise as a Concept Artist at Sony Santa Monica Studio. But one of his first jobs was actually at Top Cow Productions, working as a primary artist on the Tomb Raider comics, a series that has become beloved in the community. As both The Last Revelation and the series launched in the same year, it feels appropriate that he would be selected to take on Lara's fourth instalment.
Speaking to Crystal, Park reveals the draw of the project, “throughout my 25+ year career I’ve had the chance to illustrate Lara Croft from her comic book debut series from Top Cow Productions in the early 2000s, to covers for her subsequent comic book series at Dark Horse Comics, to several illustrations done for the past several rebooted Tomb Raider video game series from Crystal Dynamics. So getting to do a tribute piece for one of the original classic games in Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation was nothing but pure pleasure and an honor."

He also expands on what inspired his art, "for this piece, I wanted to make it as iconic as possible. Even though she wielded a flashlight in the original box art I had to depict her with her classic double silver Colt M1911s as she prepares to encounter her skeletal adversaries deep within an Egyptian temple. Her costume is essentially the one I drew during my days drawing the Tomb Raider comic book series so this one brought back a ton of memories that will last me a lifetime. I never get tired of illustrating this icon. It’s like visiting an old friend throughout the years! I can’t wait to see what the future holds…”

You can learn more and download the full piece on the Tomb Raider 25 website!

Update:
Victoria Kennedy at Screen Rant recently sat down with Andy Park to talk about inspirations and returning to Lara. You can read the full interview, HERE.
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