Sam Santala - Concept Artist | Illustrator

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you all know that my work is going to be featured inside Spectrum 24 ! If you're unsure what Spectrum is, it's a yearly collection of art created by the best concept artists, illustrators and painters in the industry, with this year being their 24th edition. Being featured in publications like this is the kind of thing I've been dreaming of since I first started painting, and I'm genuinely so humbled to have my work selected to go alongside the truly fantastic artists that go into Spectrum. This feels like some of the most encouraging news I've had in a long time and it's totally made my day. And I hope you all take a look at some of the fine work the other artists who've been selected produce, I would argue they are objectively amazing. Spectrum 24 Entries Love, -Sam

I won't deny it, I'm still a pretty big Pokémon fan, and with the new game offering up some different takes on old designs I wanted to take my favourite Pokémon and give it a new twist. First, I tried to figure out what kind of change this would be. For instance the original design looks like this: Originally just a water type Pokémon I wanted to reflect the Psychic nature that's always been present in it's design. I sketched a couple ideas, from floating monk types, to ones that seem exhausted by their mental strain.   I actually decided to work on it's previous forms story. Originally a dumb duck that suffered constaint migraines that gave it its psychic power, I wanted to try and portray this even more in its evolved form.   And so the Alolan Golduck suffers from constant insomnia. Never able to sleep from it's terrible headaches, it only worsens the effects, which in turn increase its power. Part of it's design is taki...