Game-Art-HQ

One of my most vivid Street Fighter-related memories is a boat journey to France, where there was a “Street Fighter EX + Alpha” arcade machine onboard.

This was before I’d discovered the internet or games magazines, so I literally had no idea there was a 3D Street Fighter until I saw the cabinet sitting there. My brother and I, both massive beat ’em up fans, spent the whole voyage playing on that machine, and later I got the game on Playstation.

Although I started out with Ken as I always do in a new SF title, some of the more unusual characters soon started to become favourites in SFEX+A – I remember Blair, Skullomania and Garuda all standing out.

I picked Blair to draw because she’s a bit obscure, but she’s still a great character from a great game – the character design is simple, with just the blue hair to make her stand out (this may be common in anime and JRPGs, but in Street Fighter it’s actually pretty unusual). Her moveset was very understated and cool, and she was just generally a fun character to play.

I wanted to draw a slightly less well-known character who is still one of my favourites, and so I picked Blair!

In a typically deep SF back-story, Blair’s main trait is that she has rich parents and travels the world with her bodyguard.

I thought it would be cool to draw money with the classic SF 2 bosses’ heads on (in a similar style to American dollars with Presidents’ heads), with Bison as the highest value note right down to Balrog as the lowest.

Blair burning the money therefore has two meanings: firstly it shows the one character trait that Capcom (or Arika to be strictly accurate) gave her, in that she is so rich she doesn’t care about burning money; secondly, by burning a note with Bison’s head on it, she shows her lack of respect for the Shadaloo boss, and her desire to take him down!

The pose was first drawn by hand; pencil lines scanned to Photoshop and tidied up, then coloured in PS also.

Fan Art of Blair Dame

Street Fighter EX Series