Minimalist art seems to be taking a step forward, and for a good reason. These days, the designers behind minimalist art approach the work with unique ideas and tend to come up with stuff that is recognizable, but still minimalist.
Minimalism has been an especially big art style within the gaming community, seen in the example of the Street Fighter 2 Minimalist Characters, so it’s not surprising that artists like infinitecontinues have spent a lot of time thinking about how to minimalize famous video game avatars while making sure they’re still recognizable. As above, E Honda is easily recognizable by his facial features, and his thick eyebrows. The artist only uses 4 colors/tones. What’s cool is that the designs, while on a rectangular sheet, are given dimension by the lines, so you can kind of see Honda’s large and round face in the way the lines are drawn.
This picture of Blanka is pretty interesting because it shows a little bit more detail, but is still minimalist in the way the artist limits himself to standard lines and 5 colors. In fact, the minimalist picture designs range from a pretty decent scale, with Blanka being perhaps one of the more complicated ones, and Ken and Ryu being one of the simpler designs.
Ken and Ryu are very similar in design and color, with the exception of the hair. Ken’s blonde hair is pretty well done, and its shape is well defined; meanwhile, Ryu’s look is simply his bangs and headband, which we’re all pretty familiar with.
T. Hawk and Dhalsim share a design scheme with the face paint against their skin, and Dhalsim has glowing eyes. The rest of the work is really pretty cool, and along these lines are recognizable characters, like Balrog, Vega, M.Bison, Sagat and of course Akuma.
The ranges and styles are pretty cool over all, and it is definitely a credit to both the designer, and to video game culture in general.
