Simon Belmont
Simon Belmont is concept artist Dave Rapoza's interpretation of the Castlevania video games. Commissioned by Cook and Becker, this limited edition artwork is officially licensed by Konami.
For this work, Rapoza pulled from his 'nostalgic memory', as he said in our interview with him.
"I didn't look at the original video game for my research - for me today, a two-tone purple monster will feel silly, right? Like how's that scary at all?
"Yet when you dive into your nostalgic memory, the magic is still there, your interpretation of this world that was merely implied to you by the game makers. The pixels only imply certain shapes, and you fill in the blanks with your imagination."
Besides his own memory, Rapoza looked at other interpretations of Castlevania art, too: Ayami Kojima's brilliant Castlevania art, but also the current iteration of Simon Belmont playable in Smash Bros.
"You mix all those interpretations and add your own ideas. Importantly, you have to keep to the established shape language of characters like Dracula or Simon."
"People all have favorite interpretations, and you have to appeal to this idea of the character we all share in our heads or people won't eat it."
For this work, Rapoza pulled from his 'nostalgic memory', as he said in our interview with him.
"I didn't look at the original video game for my research - for me today, a two-tone purple monster will feel silly, right? Like how's that scary at all?
"Yet when you dive into your nostalgic memory, the magic is still there, your interpretation of this world that was merely implied to you by the game makers. The pixels only imply certain shapes, and you fill in the blanks with your imagination."
Besides his own memory, Rapoza looked at other interpretations of Castlevania art, too: Ayami Kojima's brilliant Castlevania art, but also the current iteration of Simon Belmont playable in Smash Bros.
"You mix all those interpretations and add your own ideas. Importantly, you have to keep to the established shape language of characters like Dracula or Simon."
"People all have favorite interpretations, and you have to appeal to this idea of the character we all share in our heads or people won't eat it."
Dave Rapoza
Dave Rapoza (1987) is an American concept and comic artist known for his work on Spider-Man and Spider-Verse covers for Marvel comics, on Magic the Gathering cards and the Clayde's Six comic for Destiny 2.