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Final Fantasy VI Painting | Video Games Inspiring Art

Jon Amdall

Continuing a series of oil paintings inspired by my favorite classic SNES era games, this piece features characters from Final Fantasy VI (Final Fantasy III in the US). I painted a few of the protagonists; Shadow, Terra, Mog the Moogle, and Locke. There were others I wanted to include, but with such a huge cast of characters, it was hard to fit all of them. Along with this piece, I had some thoughts on how video games can provide artistic inspiration from the game’s art style or even just as a natural imaginative or creative byproduct. Much like the first painting I did in this series, I really enjoyed this Final Fantasy project and definitely look forward to more.

The oil painting was done on 12″ X 12″ oil paper and was my 277th overall. I’ll follow my standard format here, which is to share an image of the painting, the Instagram time lapse, and some verbiage specific to the piece. Then, I’ll embed the YouTube discussion video, including another brief writeup on the topic, materials used, and some other hopefully useful information. I’ll wrap the post up by sharing the YT Shorts time lapse and some other similar painting videos.

Final Fantasy VI characters (left to right: Shadow, Terra, Mog, Locke), oil on paper.

With the first painting in this series, which was based on the Secret of Mana, I had a history of sketching scenes or drawing characters from the game. This piece inspired by Final Fantasy 6 is a similar story – I’ve drawn some of these characters throughout the years, even sharing some sketches here on this site many years ago. Yet again, as with Secret of Mana, I have long been inspired by the original artist who designed the art and characters, Yoshitaka Amano. In fact, one of my most prized hardcover art books is the series called The Sky, which is a three volume set that includes Amano’s artwork from the first ten Final Fantasy games. It’s an amazing book and highly recommend it to any fan of the series – I’ve found that art to be inspiring, and it certainly spurred me to want to paint these characters again.

Beyond being inspired by the original art and designs though, I’ve found that my enjoyment of games like this also more broadly triggers creative and imaginative interest. I played most of these games when I was a kid, and I’ll admit they consumed a lot my headspace at the time. I remember when I was probably around 7 or 8 years old, the hype I had for the first Final Fantasy game was extremely high. I sketched characters based on video game magazine images in anticipation, and then once I got the game, filled notebooks with drawings – adventures I imagined and scenes from daydreams. Although it’s not quite that level, I think the concept still holds for me. I’m still a daydreamer, and things that I love (or loved decades ago) still provide a spark of interest and inspiration.

Rydia from Final Fantasy IV
Kain from Final Fantasy IV
Edgar from Final Fantasy VI
Sabin from Final Fantasy VI
My excitement for the original Final Fantasy game was off the charts.

Once again calling back to the Secret of Mana painting that kicked this off, I love how this one turned out. So far, I have enjoyed this classic RPG video game painting series quite a lot, and have found the results to be very satisfying. For this Final Fantasy VI scene, I knew from the start that I wanted to center this around Terra Branford holding a magicite crystal, with Mog the Moogle next to her. Terra always felt like the main character to me (despite the ensemble cast), and when I was a kid Mog was a personal favorite who I always tried to keep in my party. I also wanted to include Locke the treasure hunter (the guy on the right) because he was so central to everything and was another favorite. Originally, I had thought about including both Shadow (the assassin/mercenary guy on the left) and his dog, but I couldn’t find space for the dog Interceptor. Unfortunately, I had to leave out a few others like Edgar and Sabin who I also really like, but there just wasn’t space on a 12″ x 12″ painting surface for them all.

Once I had the basic concept in mind, I didn’t really have to worry much about the color selection or tone of the piece. With the Secret of Mana painting, I had to venture a bit farther from my comfort zone and try to brighten the colors up from my usual palette. I tend to be a very muddy, brown-gray painter, heavily leaning into my umbers, siennas, and ochres. I felt like my standard color palette fit pretty well with major parts of Final Fantasy VI, like Narshe and some of the industrial and “steampunk” vibes the game sometimes gives. I felt like just approaching this with my typical color selections would work pretty well. I did have to heavily reference the character art though, because I wanted their clothing to be recognizable – in that case, having access to artbooks like The Sky was tremendously valuable!

I’ve embedded a discussion video from YouTube above – this is a time lapse of the painting process, running about six minutes. Within the video, I talk more about these concepts of being inspired by subject matter like this. When I record these videos, I don’t script them – usually I just think about what topic I want to cover, decide on some overarching themes or categories, and dive right into the recording. This was the same sort of approach; just chatting about this game that I love and the painting inspired by it. I don’t usually get much traction on these in terms of views, but I do enjoy making them because I just generally like talking about art. So, at least I can keep sharing here as well.

I’ll add some additional details of the video I shared on YouTube, including materials used and some other information. I’ll also embed the Shorts video, although it’s kind of redundant to the Instagram Reels post, as I typically just share the same edited vertical time lapse on both platforms. The main video I’ve embedded is around the usual amount, and is similar in format and presentation to some of the others I’ve done (also linked after the timestamps).

Discussion Video Timestamps:

Materials Used:

Colors Used:

🎞️ Here are the playlists I’ve grouped my art videos into:

🎨 Here are some other painting walkthroughs:

✏️ Here are some pencil drawing videos:

@amdallgallery Finishing up a Final Fantasy VI oil painting – this is a scene featuring my interpretation of some of the protagonists from the game (Shadow, Terra, Mog the Moogle, and Locke). This is the second in a series I’m doing on some of my all time favorite classic RPGs from the 90s. I’ll share the full time lapse soon! #artwork #retrogaming #fanart #finalfantasy #finalfantasyvi ♬ Mines of Narshe (From "Final Fantasy 6") [LoFi Version] – Collosia

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