EPTI am an illustrator living in South Africa. To say that I'm an artist would be, I feel, inaccurate. I am first, and foremost, a nerd. I grew up playing games but apart from some Quake 3 rivalries I never got into the competitive aspects of gaming and it largely went by me as I gravitated towards immersive, single-player experiences. Not to say that I didn't like competition, however: I played chess on a competitively for some time and I have always enjoyed watching European Football, if that counts.
It wasn't until the release of Starcraft 2 that these two, strangely separated interests of mine archon warped into my discovery of E-Sports. For some reason it had always eluded me.
As I learned more about StarCraft 2 I came to marvel at how these high level players were so good at this game. Historically, I had always done well in RTS games amongst my friends. How was it that these players were so many light years ahead of me? How was it that Day 9 was explaining these elaborate concepts only weeks after this games release?
Those were questions to which everyone knew the answer; but you had to think about them, repeat them out loud, to really grasp the magnitude of that answer: These players that were so unbelievably good at SC2 had learned from a legendary select few playing another, even tougher game. And they were still playing it.
Brood War.
I did not understand anything that was said, but the Zero vs Bisu ace match on Neo Aztec was the single most riveting thing I had watched up to that point. Brood War beckoned, and I could but only follow it.
I do not pretend to be a BW aficionado; even though I've always played it, my view of Brood War is so different than that of Zero and Bisu, playing their hearts out for their teams.
What I see is different. When you try something out like BW and you start getting to grips with how ridiculously tough the game is, you can only stand in awe of the inhuman capabilities of its most skilled exponents. And then? Then you go about convincing others to watch with you, you give them the punchline to your monologue:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gnHcI.jpg)
It's been slapped together with some haste, making extensive use of photo-compositing and referencing (all the faces are, in fact, paint overs). But the result is okay.
Now, my modest and hastily created hype poster might not win you over, otherwise disinclined reader, but remember this: Brood War made me paint this, not Starcraft 2.
Long live Brood War!
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For a high-res version: http://imgur.com/MZeTD
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EDIT: I completely forgot to thank NeverGG for her amazing photopgraphs, the ones which I used to as the base for this image: thank you lady, your photos rocked! ) And thank you so much for the Spotlight! It feels like I've cheated my way to TL fame>
