Wow, I guess you guys really like the new Street Fighter!!! The producer, Rey Jimenez, wanted to respond to some of your comments and share a bit more about the game, and thank you for the overwhelming response himself.

I just have a quick update today. The next sneak peak I have is of everyone’s favorite Russian bear wrestler, yes the Red Cyclone himself, Zangief. What we have here is a work in progress, that’s why it’s not colored in yet and there might be a few minor changes that will go into it.

Click to see image and read the rest of the post.

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This portrait will be used in a few places in the game. It’s going to be used on the character select screen as the big picture when you select Zangief, and also as a little icon on the bottom of the character select screen. Also, it is the base art for the animated frames when you lose and your character is looking beat up when you lose. So, Zangief and all the other characters will have a nice “first night at Fight Club” look to them. The beat-up versions for the continue screen and whatnot will be based on originals like this.

Also, I want to thank you, the fans, for your incredible reaction to the art that’s been released so far. I know that there are a few hardcore guys that wish we used an art style from some other games, but I just want to fill you in on the reason we’re going the way we are.

We wanted to use a style that was easily reproducible, but still had enough detail worthy of the 1st HD Street Fighter game. Why reproducible you ask? Well, to be honest, doing all the frames of animation is just too much work for one person to do. Like many 2D animations you see of this quantity, there’s a team of people working on the project. Each person needs to be able to keep to the art style. So we chose this art look because it’s relatively easy to reproduce while still keeping a look that is undoubtedly Street Fighter.

My personal favorite Street Fighter artist is Ikeno-san. His style varies, but my favorite style just happens to be the one from a couple blog entries back that I happen to have signed =). If you missed it, here’s the pic of it again with me looking a little tired.

As you can imagine though, this art style would be extremely hard to duplicate and animate.

That’s it for now. I just want to end saying that yes, Akuma was intentionally beefed up because he is supposed to be bigger and beefier than Ryu, and that your favorite Street Fighter girls are not going to look buffed up like T.Hawk with a wig on.
—Rey J.

All right. That’s enough new art for one week. We’ll definitely be back next week with some new SF art for you to salivate over. Don’t forget to join us in the official Street Fighter forums!

—Brian