Never-Before-Seen Places in Dark Souls [Art Competition]

Dark Souls has many unseen lands places out of bounds or out of time that we've never seen until now we received over 200 entries from artists all over the world and these are the places they chose then from all of these entries ten artists depicting these seven lands ended up making it into the top ten and you'd think the hardest part of all this would be deciding who came first but man that's actually always the easy part the hard part is actually deciding who comes 11th 12 13th the runner-ups always come so close to making it into the top 10 but there's always just this amazing group that only just miss out so what you're seeing right now are actually the 12 runners-up that I've chosen but only one of them can get 10th place so let me show them to you and share this pain with you and also teach you a little bit about the ranking criteria for this competition in terms of technical skill these four entries were amazing we have Oliver's black church of wand or alesandro's Kareem Martens Kareem and Benjamin's citadel of sentosa unfortunately some of these weren't very rounded entries and we ended up deciding that world-building is going to be a really important factor in this competition so stronger in the world-building aspect were kayo Santos's Karthus and Rubens mafia which both possessed really powerful mood or atmosphere and in order to weight world's building more heavily I added another criteria story because visual storytelling can help you feel grounded in an image and Jonases Melfi a-- was an excellent example of this he has these buildings made from the remainders of ships upon which the refugees of Malviya once sailed to this land originality was another category it highlights the importance of expanding these worlds not just relying on what the game has already told us vincent's Malviya was a great example of this as it really doubled down an astrological theme and there were two entries for the great swamp that come to mind as well Zach's Tree of Life entry had me curious about this giant egg and Daniel's City built within a crab is really thinking outside the box we loved it and finally there's presentation Felix contributed a wonderfully detailed vision of New Londo and its flaming sons and Holdsworth hands our resident pixel art animation guy presented a charming little slice of Londo so which of these would you give tenth place to it's so tough if you disagree go and give your support to the artists that you think deserved it I hope you understand how hard this is and believe my sincere congratulations when we award 10th place to Vincent Letang zelphia in Dark Souls elfia is a nation that becomes heavily influenced by sorcery pyromancy and astrology but Vincent goes all in on the astrology theme lending an originality and depth to his piece that helped him stand out from the competition as he tells it Mel fears inhabitants settled on a mountaintop to avoid the thick sea of fog below but over the years noticed a strange light in the valley periodically a light beam would pierce the clouds and illuminate a lake fusing with the waters and creating a substance called star jelly the properties of this substance obsessed the astrologists leading to the construction of a huge observatory and research into its properties began with a refinement humans could drink the nectar which many became hopelessly addicted to leading to a swath of the population forced to assuage their hunger with the astral waste that left the sewers I would have loved to see more of the addict enemies roaming the observatory and more of the culture that must exist up on the mountaintops so while it lost a couple of points for that it is a testament to the strength of this piece that it leaves you hooked hungry for more another really original entry was Brent's rendition of Corrine which stood out to us immediately thanks to attractive color palette there were a lot of Kareem entries like a lot and it's probably because the place actually has a rare amount of visual imagery to draw from a mourns great hammer for example is said to be decorated by a ward of Kareem temple so a lot of artists modeled their architecture after the hammer furthermore morn's black armor with its gargoyle helm is very gothic so a lot of artists decided to depict a grim Gothic style city to match the grim countenance of its people these artists didn't lose points for doing that in fact those entries are probably really accurate but I do have to give a few more points for originality to Brent who depicted Kareem's atmosphere and culture with a more vibrant mood in order to better represent Kareem before it descended into a darker more depraved place however I really liked that for the keen observer subtle hints of Kareem's grim flavour to remain note the begging woman in the dark the hanging corpses in the town square and note that almost every person in this image is armed and on guard in that way the piece kind of throws a curveball to the viewer making it way more exciting to explore in both images your eyes are drawn towards important story points in the first towards the archbishop who descends the stairs in a palanquin to highlight his importance and in a second to a statue of kaya the weeping goddess who looms over the city with a giant bowl beneath her like a Lourdes vessel except this one functions as a symbolic asset to catch her tears next we travel to loot Luntz home a place called coland or what's left of it anyway we only know a couple of things about corland first that they were plagued by a beast called the soul feeder which insatiably absorbed Souls and whose corpse permanently stained the air when it was burned second we know that their people had a fascination with transposition which is the forbidden art of extracting and coalescing the essence of a soul Robert takes these concepts and he runs off with them depicting a place once blooming with wonders now filled with corpses and curses in the first of his supporting images he depicted sturer the cursed city where you can still see the soul feeder smoldering where they burned him the city bridge here stands over the soulless swamp where soulless husks prey on those who enter it and branching off from here is an entry to the soul cavern where a few soul harvesters still reside apparently there's also something called the ancient bonfire shrine here which I love because it hints that bonfires which aren't explained very much in game that they might hide a sinister truth his main image is the soul Cathedral which is the most developed image of the bunch the mood here is just incredible and when you think about it Dark Souls is kind of missing a land with a ghostly haunted soul harvesting kind of vibe and what better place for this than coland appearing in the top 10 for the third competition in a row is Jonathan Lee and whenever he contributes it's rare that anyone beats him in terms of technical skill the visual perspective he's chosen here is excellent it has this angle that draws the viewers eye up the stairs into the courtyard onto the cathedral and then up and out of the hole in the roof of course this is New Londo before it was flooded and Jonathan's talent for lighting is able to be used to its fullest extent here thanks to that hole in the roof which casts this sort of melancholy silhouette on the entire scene this sort of lighting is such a signature part of new Londos design and it plays the supporting role for the entire image here the four kings stand proud over the viewer seeing off this cult-like procession of sealers who march away from the main cathedral and if you look closely at the base of the statues you'll kind of notice a mossy damp ground which could be a bit of foreshadowing for new lenders flooded fate while it would have loved to see some original storytelling here to take new Londos origins to new depths this is a faithful scene it's perfectly executed and it's worthy of seventh place at the very least jonathan contributed a second land to this competition which wasn't recommended but we partly took it into account it's a depiction of Ferren before it's full sent into a depraved swampland and it's a refreshing uplifting view of that terrible swamp taking us back to Courland for number six Pierre presents his take on the city submitting sixteen pieces in total and overwhelming the competition with sheer volume he splits his submission into four areas each depicting a section of the city that you'll visit on your descent deep down below the clouds you arrive first at Colin's hidden access point nestled between two clouded mountaintops here you're introduced to the character and as he walks inside you get a sense that this city has long since suffered a cursed fate the light has troubled piercing the cloud cover so the actual city itself is bathed in a greenish hue but there are flames burning deep within which is a bit of foreshadowing for what's to come as I pressed forward I realized that the main character here is actually super important for grounding the piece because it's a consistent element that takes you through the descent far below in the room of the great kill you're supposed to fight Ciel the guard commander of courland and its strongest knight who defends a powerful transposing kiln and defends the plaza where the sole feeder was executed and of all the places for bosses to be acceptable coal and qualifies as one of the precious little things we know about the place is the existence of the soul feeder which let's be honest would be a boss this final boss fight takes place in coland plaza against a croc the sole feeder who was never really dead but instead simply awaits a powerful soul that will help him to regain his power now while contributing more pieces to this competition sort of increases the scope and the roundedness of your entry you're also increasing the pressure on yourself to make sure that every image has enough detail to be worthy of submission the city did feel a little bit empty which gave at some points for mood and atmosphere since that does match the story but some images were a little bit devoid of details and we would have loved some tidbits that could have expanded the story even further because that's one thing we want to reinforce is that sometimes it only takes one image to place highly in this competition and this couldn't be more true than for Nolan's rendition of Katarina which knocks it out of the park for mood for story and for originality Katarina is described as a jovial country brimming with drink and cheer and to best represent this Nolan made this really clever decision to show a Katarina and dungeon of all places you'd think such a place would be grim and depressing filled with criminals but no instead the main cells are usually just filled with those involved in drunken scuffles from the night before and hungover nights often receive plenty of loud musical visits from friends to lift their spirits while the lower levels are reserved for rare cases of serious crime or for assassins from other regions the dungeon is in the open air it's right next to the town square and the onion stalls where the general public is free to come and go in this square we see one such criminal being plucked from the streets by a strong relaxed Knight as he waves to a character behind him is he waving to the imprisoned Knight raising his seat brow in Cheers or the chef doling out stew to a hungry prisoner perhaps he's even waving to the young boy who sports a wide bowl on his head to mimic the onion-shaped helmets of the Knights that he clearly admires it could be any one of them and it's a great excuse to just look at all the character that is on display here the world-building is so powerful I can kind of imagine the rest of the city streets just from this one image that's the power of storytelling really and it doesn't need any other supporting images but Nolan did decide to show the outside view of the city which sports curved rooftops that mimic the Pierce shield that the Knights commonly wield Nolan's technical skills are impressive they show a confident control of lighting and Anatomy I particularly love the momentum of the knight plucking the assassin of the streets for example I only wish there was a bit more effort put into presentation and refinement as it is a painting of crude strokes and a few details do seem to be missing but regardless this image was a joy to review bringing the atmosphere to a different place entirely with Zen clouds interpretation of jugo which places forth in this competition central to the culture of this desert land arts giant ants whose enormous ant hills surround the region item descriptions read that he who recklessly enters an anthill will surely have their flesh melted to the bone but the risk is apparently worth the reward for many seek to collect their corrosive acid or their larvae which are considered a delicacy Zen expands this concept beautifully with this haunting fascinating wasteland let me zoom in and give you a better sense of scale and story in Zen's jugo these tall abandoned ant hills make up the city itself with high rooms for the richest citizens as these are the safest from ant invasions the city is connected with ropes and pulleys which enable aerial transport of citizens and the goods that they produce so the second tallest section makes up the artisan quarter where powder from the chitinous carapace --is of ants ground and used in production of goods and most notably it's used in the compound that's used to create Oris or which is a curious transparent metal named after its Discoverer whose armor takes on its unique properties further down is a school dedicated to pyromancy which is taught at an early age as protection against ant invasions also taken at an early age are some ants themselves which apparently can be tamed if they're taken from their colony at the moment that they're born grounding the image in the bottom left is a rider mounted on one such end and he's braving the desert and guiding his mount with a piece of meat hanging from a stick he's out here to collect ant larvae something that can only be done on the rare days that the Sun is not blocked by a sandstorm so this is a rare time where you can see the city and it's the best time for traveling and scavenging so one hilarious thing happened with all the jugo entries when talking about jugo in my announcement video we had to decide on how to visually represent the ant hills and because there are no ant hills represented in dark souls 2 my editor decided to represent them by showing the tall pillars that you see just after you defeat the guardian dragon bossfight in dark souls 2 well almost every artist who decided to draw jugo either loved the striking imagery of the super tall vertical ant hills or they thought that these were actually the ant hills from jugo and chose to represent them in that way no one just drew a normal ant hill which i thought was hilarious either way it's actually enhanced all of the jugo entries in my opinion and it's a funny unintentional side effect of the original video coming in at third place is owns artwork titled the fall of New Londo he begins and ends his story with a view of this restored New Londo Cathedral your view then descends down to the city streets where mankind from all across the realm gather these are the folks that will lose their lives when the sealers decide to flood the city to contain the four kings so there's already some bittersweet story going on just by seeing this bustling marketplace but then the next scene begins and you feel the gravity of this piece improve Gwyn is walking past the common folk and he's holding a piece of his soul the view pans back up again to better show his Vanguard of knights and the curious onlookers who have now been pushed aside Gwyn approaches the four kings who sport this faithful representation of the armor that will one day become twisted and corrupted and then he Huddle's with them to better share his soul with those who were supposed to be the best of mankind while it lacks a little bit in originality it makes up for that in all of the other categories it presented a powerful story by simply arranging these scenes in the right order and the mood of this event is powerful to any player who has played these games it's wonderful to be able to visualize a scene that we know must have happened but never see in game and it's a meaningful representation of the city that it takes place within ohm's portfolio expands his wonderful talent for environments and one of my favorite sets of his was his depiction of a desert world which had a lot of parallels with the angles that he chose for his new londo piece he states that he's looking for full-time employment contract and freelance work so if you're in a position to employ him or any of the artists on this list for that matter please reach out and now second place this location made up 10% of total submissions to this competition it's a grim land of knights and maidens of tears and sin land ruled by depraved Lords who stand under the ominous watch of Velka the goddess of sin and kayfa the goddess of tears or perhaps these two women are one and the same and deep below in their crypt yet another painted world exists where all the lords fears are locked away this is kareem by Jane the first part of her illustration depicts a historic moment in Kareem's culture every year she writes the chosen maiden and her night are blessed by the archbishop before departing to other lands to spread word of their faith this time of course its arena and aegon and behind them are members of their respective castes others who train diligently for the same honors that are being bestowed upon them Jane has hidden tons of wonderful details in this image from the crows that represent Velka to the statues that reflect their culture and the color red that represents the blood that is ready to be shed in the name of the way of white she's even gone as far as to depict what this place would look like in game replete with an area map and all of the items and NPCs that you'll encounter within and all of this effort is mirrored once more quite literally mirrored below in the crypts of velka which is designed to be juxtaposed against the cathedral above where above there were flying petals here there are flying ashes above warm colors below cold and in the center a worshipper facing volka not an archbishop facing the people this is the place full of things that Kareem was trying to hide things like purging stones sinners and Felker's twisted worshippers at the bottom of the mural are the sinners the guilty who are the lowest and furthest from Velka then there are the followers of Velka who have turned their faith toward her but not yet with the devotion that would start to turn them into crows on a physical level these are the messengers an angelic depiction of the beings that became the crow demons in-game and beyond them there's the enlightened who have completely abandoned their sinful mortal forms and have become crows entirely as you can probably tell by now we love when pieces contain really good world building in the little details and this piece really is replete with them from the thorns as a universal symbol of sin there's velka's tears which hint towards the rumors that she and the goddess of tears are one in the same there's even a man who looks suspiciously like chester in the foreground and it wouldn't be surprising to find him here of all places speaking of which it's not out of place at all to have a painted world here as well especially with all of Kareem's references to crows and Velka so that's exactly what Jane's drawn just like the outside world and its endless cycles painted worlds too are said to rise and fall and this rendition of Aria nor is very welcome in her submission because it expands the world of Kareem it doesn't just show us what we already know Jane is an artist from Ukraine working in game development to provide 2d and 3d concepts for games so she has this mixed style of presentation which must be a really attractive prospect for any of her employers as it really does help with your visualization to have 2d and 3d presentation so this piece that I've been showing on screen is her submission for another art challenge where she combines King Arthur legends with familiar Dark Souls inspired characters you should go check it out the portfolio is incredibly gripping and now for first place when I showed you the chart at the start of the video showing how many contributions there were for each land you might have noticed one lonely category izalith it's not the first place you would think of as an unseen land but anyone with really deep knowledge of the law knows that this is a civilization that has largely been erased by the time that we explore it in Dark Souls and there was once rich history and culture within this untamed city so with great pride I'd like to take you through the dawn and dusk of the age of chaos by Ricardo amici I remember very vividly the last day father and I went to visit my godmother we were invited to see the new temple complex down below our beloved capital a path leads through the realm of chaos where her reign once began and ever since the thick air was set ablaze her most grotesque spawn have wandered aimlessly then from the dark the mortals came crawling out of the woodwork in the search for light and although most of the giant creatures were barely able to subsist these monsters quickened the most primordial fears of the mortals and out of fear they worshipped them each of their kind bore the name of another fear but there was one name that would apply to the more demons throughout their coexistence the wildest architecture emerged built without order one upon the other never lasting ever changing I stayed close to father's garb for he was my guiding light through the maze of absurdity and for every step that echoed through the hallways ceilings stretching high as the sky's vault another thousand eyes stared back from the dark I could tell by their dazzled glance that they had never seen the Sun rise upon their dusty land and although they were not fortunate enough to know the order of an everyday life they all seemed to share a common goal from afar whispered a promise to end their miserable frailty and so the new temple to the destination of their pilgrimage no one understood the nature of the flame as well as my godmother did when we climbed the world she stayed behind so she could conduct research where the first fire sprouted with her bare hands she dug a deep down all the way to the tips of the arch trees root system where she believed she'd find the spark of life and so it was here that she built her kingdom to become one with it over time her cult of followers grew for they all craved godhood she taught her wealth of knowledge to her scholars and thus her Academy of fire arts became one of the three great schools of power we entered the new temple that was still under construction but already an uncountable amount of kneeling aspirants gathered before the structure to solicit their favors or seeking the flame like moths ready to burn themselves in the process their soft murmur was interrupted by the welcoming ceremonies we were received in audience by the first high priest to ever learn the eloquence of chaos in honor of our arrival we were to witness a play of tribal fire arts with the understanding of their most primal emotions they were flameless to fire storms and back again in a most rhythmic fervor it almost looked like they ardently fought one another with my yet young eyes I did not see the most obvious demonstration of power that took place right before me the priests guided us we descended further and entered a chamber they called the womb many years had passed since construction began and word of her work had preceded her I was eager to see the kingdom she built but soon I would find all my fantasies of lustrous banquets with new cousins to make friends with dwindle but she would never be the same after she dared look behind the curtain of our existence but for the first time I got to see her infamous son he was a [ __ ] but nowhere close to the malformed abomination had imagined from the rumors of bad mouthed uncles her face was set and grim she must have known father did not come in good faith he stood before her his bright presence unveiling all her darkest deeds he pointed his finger starting on his left swaying across the whole room to his right questioning everything in his path why did the arch priest skin bear scales why would she bestow the gift of fire upon the mortals and how did she not see the impurity of her son suddenly her voice rose and burned like fire bystanders who did not yet ascend to immortality were incinerated just through the sheer impact of her insensitive fury over what she had just heard her words seared the air and the hall turned torrid for a moment father's light looked like a spark swallowed by a sea of wild fire she prompted us to leave at once father stood silent for a moment never did someone dare question him he left not saying another word it didn't matter how misfigured and atrocious her son was she loved him nonetheless he was proof of the resilient miracle that life is to her he was perfect never in her dreams which he abandoned her child and this my father did not understand we went outside the air still trembled from the uproar and the ash fall got stronger still addled with a ringing in my ear I tried keeping up with father's pace until suddenly strange lights caught my attention my curiosity led me off track to a few scorched Souls I remember one of them approached me carefully with an oddly familiar stare as if you recognized me he lifted a strange creature from his head and called it his son these people were the proof of what would eventually await those who play with fire on the receiving end of the experiments was a world of searing pain and darkness the only soothing glimmer was an illusion of the Sun induced by those fireflies a local drug to those who sacrificed their humanity in vain to keep the new fire from fading it wasn't until I looked into his hollow eyes that I realized that those maggots are a parasite yet find their host to use their frail body as a vessel so that they can hatch suddenly my curiosity was disturbed by a ghastly noise from below the temple surface that went right through me it sounded like a tormented growl and with it came a rotten stench of intestines when I flinched I fell into the ash and burned my hands it truly was an eerie place I winced and hastily caught up with father the mortals who benefited from the rebirth on the other hand became the masters of their own fate but swore to spend their eternity in allegiance to their mother as sentinels of her realm they didn't just build walls to fend off outsiders they built labyrinths upon labyrinths so the unfamiliar world would lose themselves in the spiraling Babel we were guided all the way to their outer trade posts where their land converged with ours it was the path my kin had taken so many years ago when they first learned to walk upright the upper districts served to provide the underworld with water in exchange for liquid fire to heat their forges they supplied the outer world with their most precious titanite a royal blacksmith values so much i remember hearing the clinking of prospecting and the clanking of smithery from all around the cave they must have grown so big that they were able to forge whole archways just like horseshoes on their anvils it was here that father decided a church must be built to bless these lands with his faith and when whatever slumbers beneath awakens ready to feast and hell breaks loose again only then would the Bell be wrong at the Sunburst day as I write these notes that time has now come and father heeds the core our legions prepared ever since have mobilized and will soon march off not knowing what will await them alas my god mother no matter what father hopes to find down there no God deserves to be consumed no God deserves to be consumed chilling words from the child who looks a lot like Gwendolyn the identity of this child is just one of the many hidden details that support this piece and you can read a ton of them over on Ricardo's art station page it was a thrill to see how many of these that I noticed on my first reading and of course how many I missed as well how many did you find so after taking so much time to read everything I don't really think I need to tell you guys why this deserves first place but I do want to let you know that I didn't technically judge it just like Ricardo's entry in the last competition Ricardo and myself have started to work on projects together so to avoid bias this score was provided solely by John Devlin who was my co judge in this competition so please please go and shower John's social media with support as well because these competitions could not be judged alone and John is a really talented artist in his own right these competitions bring me so much joy and they're always worth the money I invest in them and I love reading your comments about all the art so as I leave you today I want to ask you all the question both the viewers and the artists what do you think about an art book containing all of the top entries maybe like the top ten or even the top 20 so that we can include more people in it it would be a way way better visual medium than YouTube is and I have a very talented publisher in mind so let me know in the comments and look out for the next art competition should it be Demon Souls or should it be blood-borne stay tuned you

Channel: VaatiVidya

Views: 548,316

Rating: 4.9719644 out of 5

Keywords: guide, walkthrough, lore, dark, souls, remastered, dlc, two, bloodborne, story, vaatividya, vaati, vidya, videos, shadows, twice, from, software, sekiro, ringed, city, ashes, ariandel, elden, ring, trailer, melfia, courland, new londo, carim, izalith, catarina, mirrah, astora, vinheim, londor, great swamp, carthus, jugo, zena, millwood, artwork, fan art, concept art

Id: baiVamSrGu8

Length: 33min 0sec (1980 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/IceCreamYouScream92]

I want all these people to make me Dark Souls 4. Just put it on kickstarter, right now.

[u/Pennykettle_]

Concept art is better than games in most cases so this was sort of as exciting as a small game to me. If this were all just released in an art book and claimed to be official scrapped concepts for the games, it would be better.

​

I really hope they do figure something out and release these all in an artbook. I wonder how they would name it. Selling Dark Souls art seems risky legally? I know people sell shirts and prints already but an artbook feels like it could be seen as misleading. Either way I would love to get my hands on this.

[u/matthabib]

Loved Vaati's lore videos for years but I have to admit I don't enjoy his commentary on these comp videos. It's clear that the artists are incredibly skillful but some of Vaati's comments about some areas "lacking" sounds really pretentious.

[u/haynespi87]

I'm enjoying the critiques of a critic here. I often rank Vaati's entries differently. But then again it is very rare that you find people who match you in subjectivity. While many of us may say the Godfather is a better film than say Cats. There is someone who loves Cats, someone who hates the Godfather and someone else who likes Godfather but ranks them lower than every Tarantino film.

Continue the discourse and critique it's great to think upon