A GRRIZLY FATE is a new rendition of a piece I’ve gone back to a handful of times now. Starting out as an illustration made for a class project, I’ve wanted to push it more and more as its own piece.

“Lil’ Grizz”, as he is addressed in his accompanying jam track in the game “Fortnite”, is a unique skin because he is, as of now, the only one to mix both elements of standard and cel-shaded design into one character. Not only does this intrigue me in the technical aspect, but it also does so much in terms of storytelling for his character, implying that while Grriz himself exists from a cartoon, cel-shaded reality, the “Slurp Suit”, as he calls it, that he pilots was created using tech and resources from Reality Zero.

The reason that this piece is one I had always come back to for reworks and tweaks was to better convey that aspect of his character, but my heavy reliance on line art in my work made that a struggle. Having experimented more with lineless works, I used that to my advantage to push that distinction in his character design more clearly in this latest rendition.