Nathan Johnson's Angel of Darkness Box Art Reimagining

[19th July 2021] At the start of the year, Crystal Dynamics revealed a new project which revealed that a group of handselected artists would bring their own reimagined twist to the Tomb Raider game covers we all love and grew up with. Since then we've had one piece revealed each month, until now. For Angel of Darkness, the studio approached a currently unknown artist whose style they believe perfectly compliments the game. As the commission couldn't be completed for the month and, to allow them to have extra time, they reached out to four artists in the community to help them celebrate the game.

The third artist was recently announced as Nathan Johnson (aka @nathansuxx_), whose unique approach focuses on bold and contrasting colours forming striking silhouettes against a bright reddish-pink background. While smaller details such as lip outline and forehead wrinkles are marked in, the piece almost entirely focuses on larger shapes of colour to form the subjects. 

In his introduction on the Tomb Raider 25 website, Nathan talks a little about his passion for art;"I’m currently working as a Graphic Designer and am a long-time fan of Tomb Raider. Despite starting to work in the art world only recently, I’ve had a passion for digital art for years. It was always a side hobby throughout school, where I’d be drawing all my favourite badass female characters, from Samus Aran to Chloe Frazer to of course Lara Croft herself. Then once I made it to college, I was certain that this is the career I wanted - so much so that I combined the two things I love for my final exam - art and Tomb Raider. Three years ago I was putting the finishing touches on my box art for the Tomb Raider movie in that exam; fast forward to today I’m creating my own box art reimagining for Angel of Darkness, commissioned by Tomb Raider themselves. A dream come true!"

"When it comes to the classics & LAU, I strongly associate them with bright colour palettes, like the jade of Tomb Raider II’s Floating Islands or the luscious red sky of Tomb Raider Legend’s key art. However with Angel of Darkness, it takes a 180 sporting deep blues and purples, along with vivid connotations of thunderstorms and danger. For my piece, I wanted to combine what makes AOD’s art direction so unique, with the bright colours of not only the other games but also my own artwork. I wanted to find a balance between the light and dark, but not quite to the point where they blend nicely together. I still wanted to keep a clear contrast to maintain a slightly chaotic feel, as if there’s any word I would use to describe AOD, chaotic is definitely the one. I was quite ambitious going into this one, aiming to create something that feels grand and has the effect of a movie poster. AOD is a very popular game among the community, so I hope this slight detour from the usual dark and gritty representations of the game is perhaps an unexpected but welcome change!"

You can download Nathan's artwork on the Tomb Raider 25th website, HERE!