Game-Art-HQ

On Game-Art-HQ.Com i try to feature Artists with their works, but who are the people behind those fan arts showed here? How did they start, what do they think about their works and maybe this site?

I plan to interview some of the Artists, be they popular for their works or not and hope these Interviews might be interesting for fans and other artists as well

The first Interview was made with Esau Murga, a 29 year old american artist who is known for his Mortal Kombat related fan arts mostly and recently participated in a Gears of War 3 contest on Deviantart

You can find his DA Page here, and his selected videogame related fan arts here on GA-HQ

Self Portrait as a Villain

Esau Murga, nice to get you for the first Interview with an artist who draws professional looking video game fan art!
Please introduce yourself a bit and tell the readers how your motivation to draw these images started

Well I started drawing when I was a little kid and I was heavily into stuff like Terminator, Predator, Aliens, and Big Trouble In Little China. So at an early age I knew I liked to draw not necessarily that I could.

When I went to school I stood out in my art classes that was when I knew I had some skill. As there years went by I was just drawing things I saw in movies and on tv. Then when I was 10 my cousin told me about Mortal Kombat it was like a match made in heaven for me.

It was an obsession sometimes an unhealthy one, and until this day its not just my favorite game series its part of who I am. I was motivated to do these works because of (and no insult to anyone) the lack of great MK fan art.

Don’t get me wrong there are some good MK fan art out there I just wanted to be known as the guy who does MK art.

You draw fan arts of different video games series, but the most are from Mortal Kombat. Is that your favorite video game series or do you just prefer to draw the MK characters?

Yes, Mortal Kombat is definitely my favorite game series of all time. I find it hard sometimes not to draw MK fan art but I really need to develop more of a variety. I think my main gallery does a good job of telling people what i my interest are.

I saw that you tag your Mortal Kombat fan arts as “MK Legacy” Parts, is that a re-design project of your own?

When I did my first one of Raiden I knew I wanted to give it a name that kinda told the history of it. If that makes any sense?

It is a personal project of mine but not a redesign. I do like to point out that I began naming my pieces MK Legacy long before the web series was released.

Your entry for the Gears of War 3 art contest held by deviantart looks very professional, in my opinion it should have good chances to win, but did you draw it because the prizes and fame or did you play the GoW games before and it is just another fan art for you without caring much to win one of the prizes?

I am a big fan of Gears its my favorite series after MK. I remember seeing the message for the contest and wasn’t going to enter cause I found out about it a bit late.

Then I saw that the Epic art team will be part of the judging. I was all in after that. Personally its more about being noticed by the Epic art team for me.

I mentioned that i think your GoW 3 Contest entry looks very professional, and people can see that a lot time and effort was spent into it, do you think that fan arts without a commercial background can be in the same league as drawings made by paid artists?

Yes of course! You said it yourself my work looks professional but no one is paying me for it. Its all about talent and the drive to get it done. I get it a lot ” Dude your stuff looks amazing you should be working for Netherealm studios” well when I see the art work that the real professionals do and I get humbled.

Then I realize that at one point and time they were not getting paid for it either.

Where do you see the differences between fan art and professional art?

Well I guess the biggest difference to me is the time you get to spend on a single piece of art. A piece of fan art has unlimited time to complete a professional has a deadline. So learning how to work fast is a good thing. Something I need to practice.

Another thing is the pros’ have the tools to get it done. Some of us fan art artist don’t have the luxury of using the best tools.

I saw that many artists sell fan arts via deviantart, how it comes you don’t?

Well honestly I don’t know how people are getting away with it? I don’t sell my fan art works because of legal issues. I don’t have any rights to make money off of games like Mortal Kombat, Gears, and Dead Space. I have thought about maybe teaming up with you one day for a contest on Deviantart and give one of my deviations as a prize.

In July, short after i founded game-art-hq-com i contacted you and asked you for the permission to use your drawings on this site. Back than ga-hq was very empty and it had only a few visitors at a day, what was your first impression of this project and why did you support it with your works?

Well I thought it would be a good chance to display my work on another site. I heard successful game artist saying that if you want to get into the business you got to get your stuff out there. It certainly helped that we chatted a few times before on Deviant art and TRMK.

Not knowing the person who asked me for my art work would have made me a bit more skeptical. Now that I think about it I really don’t know you GBK666. That’s a mighty scary number at the end of your name.

Can you tell me something about your Raiden entry for the Mortal Kombat Fan Art Tribute Project already?

Well now that Im able to work on it I can tell you that im deciding between and Evil Raiden or regular Raiden.

LOL! I like keeping my stuff a little secret.

Now after 4 months where do you see game art hq now and what do you want and expect from it in the future?

I’m excited to see it expanding i check it pretty often especially with this MK Fan Art Tribute Project. Its definitely becoming more popular. I hope it becomes popular enough that game developers use the site to reach out to fans and say thank you for the support. It would be nice if some one asked an artist have you had your work featured on any sites? The he/she says Game Art HQ and the other person is impressed.

Thats all, thank you for your time and the Interview! I am looking forward to your future works and i bet many of our visitors do as well!

This interview was done by GBK, founder of GA-HQ and fan of video game related art

To comment and discuss this interview, you can visit the forum thread about it here