Street Fighter: The Complete History
Hi. David got me this book a while back now, and I have been wanting to write about it for ages. While the main focus is art from Street Fighter II, the book starts with Street Fighter and before it ends up at Street Fighter IV it covers Street Fighter Alpha, Final Fight, the X-Men/Marvel vs. Street Fighter/Capcom series, the Capcom vs. SNK games and even goes into the professional EVO fighting tournaments and Chun-Li cosplay. But as I said, it’s main focus is art from Street Fighter II, and that is where this book excels. It surely includes the promo art for every character in every iteration of SFII, tonnes of concept and design pieces, and every single group shot I can ever recall seeing.
It takes in every style: The dorky and awkward original portraits before the fighters personalities had been properly defined. The boldly-lined block colour pictures where all the characters are “attacking” the canvas from Street Fighter II Turbo (you can tell it’s Turbo because everyone is in their alternate colour by default). The younger and wilder anime-style illustrations from the Alpha series. The grittier, more angular style from Street Fighter III. It also very briefly features some of the captivating sumi-e art from Street Fighter IV, with ink flying everywhere. The book also includes a lot of fan-art and art by non-Capcom artists, a neat way of showing the vast ocean of people who love and are inspired by the imaginative characters of the series.
My only problem with the book is that it is a little bit scattershot. I would’ve preferred the artworks to be more organised – via game, artist or character, for example. But to be honest, it is such a small, meaningless complaint, as by browsing through the book, you are encountering art you would not necessarily expect, or be seeking.
Now, enough of the book itself. It finally put names to the artists who drew these amazing pictures of the characters I have loved for twenty years, so it’s time for me to gush like a silly little fanboy and praise them to bits. Here are three of my favourite Street Fighter artists, with a brief description of their art-style.