Phew! So, after two weeks and two full-blown conventions, we're back at the Capcom offices. It was pretty crazy, and a lot of hard work, but we pulled it off and both E3 and Comic-Con were smashing successes. Now that I've had a day or two to collect myself after the insanity that is Comic-Con, I thought I'd give you a little look at my time down in San Diego.

I arrived a few days after the convention had started, so I was greeted by throngs of attendees who swarmed the exhibit hall. Views like this were common and stretched all the way to the other side of the convention hall. Thankfully, the elevated Street Fighter IV boxing ring was a welcome sancutary amongst the crowds.

Of course, the SFIV ring was plenty busy, with a constrant stream of players filling the 12 arcade machines we had available. Lines to play easily wrapped around the ring, and we even had repeat visitors who would line right back up after finishing a round.

The twice daily tournaments drew big crowds too. Each day at 11AM and 3PM, fans competed against each other in a multi-round tournament to decide the best player. Things got pretty heated in some of the later rounds, as the final players were pretty evenly matched. With Seth's commentary and huge flat-panel screens to watch the action, the tournaments made for some great dama.

In all, the Capcom booth was consistetly packed with people either shopping at the Capcom store, playing SF4, getting an autograph from Ono-san, or demoing our roster of upcoming games. To say it was crowded is an understatement.

For those of you who visited Comic-Con, sights like these are pretty familiar. So, I thought I'd give you a little peek of the less public side of the convention - teardown. Going from a fully-packed convention floor with equipment and people to essentially an empty room in a little over 6 hours may sound impossible, but those are the rules. So the minute the door sclose and the stragglers are kicked out, we're off to work tearing stuff down.

 

Taking apart a pretty complicated booth like ours is hard enough, but with a strict deadline, everything has to be done efficiently. Boxes had to be packed, stacked and ordered properly on pallets to be shrink-wrapped and sent back to Capcom HQ, kiosks had to be disassembled, and more fragile items like TVs and consoles were packed in specially padded containers. It all made for a lot of heavy lifting.

Still, with our crack team of Capcom employees, a basket of snacks to keep our energy going,  and some help from our movers, we cleaned up and were ready to go hours before our 11PM deadline. So, we celebrated like anyone would after a long day, by stuffing our face with Mexican food and margaritas! Olé!

A lot will be happening at Comic-Con this week, and Capcom will be there with a veritable boatload of things to see and do! With the convention set to start in only two days, we thought we'd break down a few of the things to look out for while on the show floor.

Street Fighter IV Tournament

Be one of the first to play the final arcade version of Street Fighter IV straight from Japan! Think you're good enough to take on all challengers? Throw you name in Capcom's literal boxing ring and join in on our twice-daily SF4 Tournaments to win fame, cred and prizes such as the limited-edition Chun-Li statue signed by producer Yoshinoro Ono himself, or a fully-loaded AT&T smartphone with Street Fighter Eternal Challenge already loaded! Tournaments run daily at 11am and 3pm, but you must sign up first thing every morning to get a chance to play.

Calling ALL SF COSPLAYERS!

Friday is Street Fighter Cosplay day as we send the call out for ANY and ALL SF cosplayers to congregate at the Capcom booth on Friday at 2pm to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Street Fighter as well as the premiere of Street Fighter IV. SF4 producer, Yoshinoro Ono, will be presenting a special "Making of SF4" multimedia presentation at the Capcom booth and afterwards will personally judge the attending SF cosplayers in a variety of categories. Winners will receive an exclusive, limited-edition Chun-Li statue personally autographed by Ono-san himself. The ultimate Street Fighter collector's item for any SF fan!

Our only rule for entry: you must dress better than this guy...

Celebrity Appearances and Free Stuff!

It wouldn't be a convention without some famous people and a ton of free schwag, and the Capcom booth will be delivering on both fronts! Kristin Kreuk, star of Smallville and the upcoming Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, will be gracing the Capcom booth with her presence, along with Udon artists Adam Hughes and J. Scott Campbell. Producers of Street Fighter IV, Yoshinoro Ono and David Clislip, and Bionic Commando Producer Ben Judd will also be on hand to chat,  and we can't forget Mega Man and Bionic Commando himself! Both heroes will be roaming the convention floor ready to mingle with fans; you might even be lucky enough to wear the actual Bionic Commando arm prop!

If that isn't enough to bring you on over to our booth, we'll be handing out some great free goodies, including an exclusive SF4 Ryu headband, Dark Void frisbee flyer, and SF4 and Bionic Commando posters, along with Capcom mints, lanyards, and character tattoos.

So, if you'll be at San Diego Comic-Con this week, be sure to stop by the Capcom booth and check out all the great stuff we'll be showing off. See you there!

P.S. For a complete breakdown of all the Capcom events going on at Comic Con, check out the official schedule below.

 

 

Coming to San Diego Comic-Con this week is perhaps the most exclusive Street Fighter collectible ever created - Chun-Li from Street Fighter IV! Created as a marketing promotional item, SOTA Toys (known for their awesome SF toys in past years) sculpted an uncanny likeness of Chun-Li based on the art by the designers in Capcom Japan. Personally overseen and supervised by SF IV producer Yoshinoro Ono, this Chun-Li boasts the stature and essence of perhaps the most popular Street Fighter character ever in the newest edition of the SF franchise.

Chun-Li is created in two different versions, a 9" statue limited to just 700 (numbered) units, and a smaller 4" version limited to just 3000 units. Of this, only 400 of the 9" statue will be offered for sale for $100 each. Only 1500 units of the smaller 4" version will be offered for $10 each. These products are sure to sell out and will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Ono-san will be appearing daily in the Capcom booth, so there will be plenty of opportunities to have your Chun-Li collectible personally autographed, too.

Street Fighter IV the arcade game will be available for hands-on play at Capcom's booth (#5113) everyday during Comic Con, so for those visiting be sure to stop by and check it out!

 

Capcom and Udon Studios are proud to unveil an incredible artistic collaboration this month at San Diego Comic Con with the massive 300+ pages Street Fighter Tribute Book, a collection of original Street Fighter drawings by some of the top artistic talents in the world of comic books, video games, and commercial art. Some pieces are first-time interpretations of Street Fighter by megastars like Adam Hughes, while others are just additions to their incredible lineage of SF art already created by talents like J. Scott Campbell, Mark Brooks, Long Vo, and Alvin Lee.

Capcom's own Creative Director, Francis Mao, and Graphics Designer, Kevin Converse also contributed to the visual melting pot with renditions of their favorite SF/SFIV characters. Kevin created a dynamic rendition of Crimson Viper and Francis did his own take of Dhalsim.

Here's a Capcom-Unity exclusive on how Francis created his piece:

THUMBNAILS:

I start with a mental image and always like to loosely scribble that image drawing as quickly and as freely as possible regardless of size, proportions, or anatomy on a piece of paper. The focus is to get the visual essence of the image on paper as quickly as possible before the vision evaporates. The looser the thumbnails, the more energy and attitude a drawing seems to have. I don't bother with any details, perhaps some shading/lighting if it's crucial to the piece - it's all about the moment captured by the image.

PENCILS:

I place a piece of paper over the initial thumbnail on a light table and start to redraw the image using the thumbnail as a roadmap of the art. But since the paper is thick and obscures most of the details, it allows me to take a detour whenever I want as I use my pencil to add details that I didn't think about when I first doodled the image, or adding parts of key lighting/shading issues.

INKS:

Once the pencils are complete, I move to the inking stage where I redraw the image once again - this time committing it in permanent ink (maybe not so permanent because I can always use White Out correction fluid on the paper, or erase mistakes in Photoshop after I scan in the image). When inking, I think about a variety of things including: the outline of the character, proper placement of shadows, and clean details. Since I know the illustration will ultimately be presented in color, I add a little less ink details than I normally would for a black and white piece and make some notes on a sticky about what details I would add when I color the piece.

COLORS:

I scan the inked art at 300dpi, RGB and then tweak the art considerably in Photoshop by cleaning up stray lines and even moving pieces around like rotating the skulls on the necklace, and adjusting the perspective and size of certain limbs. Once satisfied with the final line art, I create a duplicate of the black line art and place it atop the original and set the properties of the top duplicate layer to "Darken." Then I start adding color and details on the bottom layer but the top black line layer remains intact thereby keeping its rich, black keyline.

I lay down an initial layer of basic tones for each part of Dhalsim's body. Then I lay down a layer or solid shadows similar to the tones beneath it. To add dimensionality to his musculature and body, I add some highlights atop the base and shadow tones.

FINAL ART:

Once the figure is fully colored, I start thinking about a background that would complement the art and not detract from it. Instead of something specific like a scene from the game, or something that ties into Dhalsim's background, I opted for a colorful background with some texture to offset the tones of his skin and body. The geometric lines crisscross and intersect the pattern of his arms and legs making them seem to stretch to an even more extreme.

Final touches such as his red face paint, glowing eyes, and the reflections on his armbands complete the piece. I saved the final file as a .jpg and fired it off to Udon for inclusion in the book and look forwards to seeing it in print at Comic Con!

Check out this link to find out more about the Street Fighter Tribute Book and how to order your copy today!