RKG x BLOC. Collaborate for Retry: Demon’s Souls (Patreon)

We’re excited to announce we’re collaborating with the artist BLOC. for Retry: Demon’s Souls.

We’ve been fans of BLOC.’s Souls artwork for a long time, and thought his bold designs would be a perfect way to present the show. He’ll be designing original pieces for all 17 thumbnails, as well as redesigning some of our core in-show graphics. (If you want to see more of his work, you can find him on Instagram and Twitter.)

We first became aware of BLOC.’s art a few years ago, backing his Victory Achieved book on Kickstarter, which collected together all of his art for the original Dark Souls. We later found out he discovered the games through watching Prepare To Try. So he felt like a perfect person to collaborate with on the latest series of Retry – not only does he closely know Miyazaki’s games, he also knows Finchy and the weird worlds we’ve created over the years.

BLOC. is the illustration work of UK-based book cover designer Steve Panton. We wanted to use this post to introduce him to you all and share a little glimpse of what we’ve been working on since late last year. He’s currently busy finishing up all the art for the new series, but we wanted to speak to him about his work and this project.

How would you describe your style?

Strong silhouettes, bold graphic shapes, vivid but simple colour palettes contrasted by detailed linework. I like trying to distil and simplify when illustrating, that’s why I love doing anything FromSoft related. All their characters and bosses are so rich in detail, and I enjoy the challenge of depicting them in a simpler, more graphic way.

My style developed slowly through experimentation and trying different tools. My work has always been about simple graphic shapes. I love the work of artists and designers like Saul Bass and Cleon Peterson. The biggest evolution in my style though came from when I got an iPad back in late 2018, using Procreate I was able to play and experiment more without having to nail myself to my desk. I drew my first FromSoft related piece in 2019 as a bit of fun and the rest is history.

What’s your approach when first trying to turn a boss into a piece?

My first step is research. I try to pull together as many images from as many different angles as possible: I want to know how their body is shaped, how their armour is formed. Quite often in a FromSoft game you only really see the boss front on as you are fighting them, so finding references for their entire shape can be difficult. It also helps me understand what sort of pose they should be in. I then try to focus on their silhouette and how they will fill the canvas. Once happy with a composition I essentially redraw the image multiple times on different layers, slowly refining and adding more detail until I am happy with the result.

Do you have a favourite piece you’ve done for Retry: Demon’s Souls?

Ooo that’s a tough one, each one poses a different challenge due to the variety of bosses. If I had to pick one, seeing as I love strong silhouettes it would have to be Flamelurker.

Can you remember what your first Souls experience was?

Prepare To Try was my first experience with a Souls game, but my first hands-on experience was Bloodborne. On my first ever playthrough I remember a lot of Blood Vial farming and getting my ass kicked by Blood-Starved Beast for an incredibly long time, but after Vicar Amelia the game clicked with me. Multiple playthroughs and a Platinum trophy later I consider Bloodborne to be my favourite game of all time (though Sekiro often battles in my mind for the top spot).

I’m a Primordial Slug and a Patron, I would always listen to the IGN UK podcast at work and spend my lunch hour scrolling through the IGN homepage, so when I stumbled upon Prepare to Try I gave it a watch and have been a huge fan ever since, which made working with the boys on Demon’s Souls an absolute dream project.

We’re so happy to be working with BLOC. on this project. Not only is he a fantastic artist, whose work is going to give the new series a striking look unlike any other playthrough out there, he’s a Slug and totally gets what we’ve been working on for so long, which means a lot to us.

YouTube thumbnails are often an afterthought, the last thing that’s done before a video is published, a last-minute slump across the finishing line. Sometimes they’re an exercise in reverse engineering what you think people might want to click, which results over time in so many of them looking the same. Since we’re supported directly by our audience, rather than accumulating clicks, we’re in this wonderful position where our only consideration is picking ones that look beautiful. That’s why we wanted to work with BLOC.

We’ve put an enormous amount of work into this series across the last 9 months, and want to make this release feel a little different. We wanted to present this series as if it was a film or an album we’ve made – the same amount of energy and thought has gone into it – and we knew original artwork by a talented artist was the way to go about it. Working with BLOC. is going to give Retry: Demon’s Souls a distinctive presentation which we hope will make it stand out from other playthroughs out there.

RKG x