Artist Spotlight: Joel Sousa

Country: Portugal

Medium of Art: Traditional, Digital

@SonicWildfire | Facebook.com/joelsousaart

Joel Sousa’s career in art started as many others have; he has been illustrating since the farthest reaches of his memory, inspired by pop-culture. “As a little kid I would watch cartoons on TV or read comics, and I’d lay down on the floor to start drawing them.”

Nintendo offered up a wealth of content to encourage him in these formative years. “I think it has something to do with the vibrant moments that each game leaves in our memories,” explained Sousa. “And upon illustrating those moments, I’m reliving and sharing them with others through my art.”

Emulating other artists’ work got Sousa started, but eventually he established a style all his own, hallmarked with brilliant colors and exaggerated action. “I think that what’s unique to my style is the comic book vibe that some people get upon seeing my Illustrations.”

“Super Metroid has such a vast amount of cool moments, and any one of those would be amazing to do.”

Sousa’s work usually begins with pencil and paper, and then once satisfied with the layout, he moves on to coloring the piece digitally. “I only illustrate games that I have played in order to get the feeling

of the characters and the ambience of the world. After playing the game I’ll choose my favourite parts and start sketching until I get that perfect angle for the composition. A thing that helps too is the soundtrack of said game, it’ll drive my imagination,” he explained, echoing the sentiment of many Super NES-inspired artists.

“Super Metroid has such a vast amount of cool moments, and any one of those would be amazing to do,” said Sousa, speaking to one of his featured pieces. “But since I wanted to portray Ridley, I went for the very beginning of the game, when he steals the infant metroid after clashing with Samus.

“Usually people comment on how I was able to touch the nostalgia for a certain game of their youth, and that makes me very happy.”