by Rowan "Sumaleth" Crawford

he Darkpath Images web pages are filled with the shared artistic vision of brothers, Kyri and Costas Koniotou, a vision that touches on a whole range of genres - neo-gothic, horror, sci-fi, a touch of fantasy, and the occational hint of real life - all mixed together to create a distinct Darkpath style.

Our cover for this week features an unusual, but visually pretty hot, interpretation of the feature topic, game networking. Our covers for loonygames are usually illustrative so it's good to try something a little "designy" for once...only for once mind you. :)

One of Costas' photoshop images. You can find a making-of tutorial here. (70k).

The image was created by half of the Darkpath team, Costas, in collaboration with his cousin, Andy. A talented family all round.

I asked Costas how the image was made;

"Well, this image was made using a mixture of photos and filters. The lasers I made out of a those squiggly lines you get on a life support machine - lifeline's or whatever the fakk they are :). Put over a photo of Andy's girlfriend, and we continued adding extra layers of effects and textures and experimenting with the filters, layer options and colours 'till we were smiling."

Anyone who has seen Costas' work on the Darkpath site will see this image as something of a departure from his usual style, something he does occasionally. "This is just one of the way's I create work. Personally I prefer working on, and painting, my own handrawn art, but sometimes I find this way much quicker but still effective."

One of Costas' "3D Painted" images. (44k).

Costas is currently doing a Graphic Design course for Illustration and Computer Graphics, which sees him using programs such as Photoshop, Quark Xpress, Freehand, and Director. The course also teaches some web design and, in following years, he hopes that it will venture into the world of 3D.

The Koniotou brothers set up the Darkpath Images web site with the aim of finding some freelance work, or even fulltime work if the opportunity presented itself. Costas' would personally like to work in the game industry, doing character designs, 3D modeling and texturing, but is also interested in the idea of designing web pages.

On the subject of influences;

"Well, comics have been a huge influence on my art. From way back in the [earliest days] it's been artists like Simon Bisley, Dale Keown, Glenn Fabry and Jim Lee to name a few. HR Giger is also a big favorite, along with fantasy artists like Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Richard Corben... I could probably go on all day."

If ever there is a world shortage of ink, you know who to blame (60k).

Currently he's working on an animation of the 'seven deadly sins', and continues to draw and work on his technique all the time.

Favorite game?

"Well it's been a while since I played anything - the last game I was playing was Soul Reaver on the PSX and I thought it was bloody excellent! [Although] if I had Quake III Arena and Resident Evil 3 I'd be playing them both right now."

Ever done art for games?

"Not as of yet... Any offers?"

To see more of Costas' spooky artwork (and his bro, Kyri), there's lots of cool stuff on the Darkpath Images site. Definitely worth a look for something a bit different.

- Rowan "Sumaleth" Crawford is loonygames' Supervising Art Director.