To Link the Fire: Meet the Souls Content Community
Aug. 16, 2015To Link the Fire: Meet the Souls Content Community
Back in June this year, I had the amazing fortune of being interviewed in an Edge magazine articlealongside Hidetaka Miyazakiabout online communities filling in the blanks for games they love. The journalist, Ben Maxwell, asked me: “Why is it important for you to do this?”. My reply was:
Back in 2008, whenDemon’s Soulsfirst launched, Japanese fans were lost as to what to do, or where to go in the game world. The stubborn amongst us decided not to give up, and started recording our findings on the Livedoor-hosted Japanese wiki.Slowly but surely, we created a resource that took a difficult and mystery-shrouded game and documented the whole damned thing. I find myself 7 years later with an accidental mission: That any gamer can feel welcome in the RPG they want to try, and they feel there’s a community there for them with ideas, support and simple or in-depth explanation to complicated or obscure concepts.
In these 7 years I have been introduced to, discovered and met amazing individuals and teams who create exceptional content around the games we love. And from today, Fextralife would like you to meet them too.
In this series we will be showcasing members of the Souls community, who through their passion, dedication and hard work have become a bigger influence than most. Some of these individuals are already well known and others have been operating quietly behind the scenes. We hope you’ll get to know all of them, learn some things about them and gain some insight into the pillars of the community.
Click on the tabs above (or watchthis video) to get started meetingJohn DevlinandSunlight Blade.
Fexelea
Our first interview isJohn Devlin. He’s an avid Dark Souls fan and artist who regularly does drawings and sketches of the Souls universe. If you haven’t seen his work, you’re in for a real treat! Make sure to follow him onInstagramor if you love the worksorder online printsof his creations.
Fex:How did you arrive at the Souls Series, what brought you here?
John: I was studying illustration, back when Dark Souls came out. I had never heard of Demon’s Souls, but my friend Mark who is really into gaming suggested it so I went and found a special edition of the game. The same as many other people, it was word of mouth, someone introduces the game to them and then they introduce it to their friends.
Fex:How did the game click for you, what got you hooked?
John: It was just different. At the time I was looking for something different and that was the answer. The design is what pulled me in, it had nothing to do with challenge or difficulty, it was all to do with the design. It just kept me going on it.
For a Japanese game, it’s so different looking, it’s such serious fantasy, that I’m not even into, but the design for this game really worked for me.
Fex:How did you start creating Souls-related art?
John: For a long time, I knew I wanted to create Dark Souls art, but I never got around to it. The start of it was with this event called “Inktober“, where artists do a piece everyday that has to be inked. I didThe Channelerfrom Dark Souls and I wasn’t even supposed to be doing it but someone in the comments said I should do another and it just went from there and I got this massive Dark Souls fanbase.
Fex:Do you do art for other games as well?
John: Yes. One of the reasons I really love to draw is that if I’m a fan I can do art for it. That’s the only reason I want to draw, to begin with. When I was younger, FFVII was the reason I wanted to draw: Sephiroth and Cloud, I wanted to make pictures of them, and that’s what drives me to draw so much.
Fex:Have you been drawing for a long time?
John: It was only when I was 19 that I took drawing seriously. I wasn’t planning to do art, and then I decided to go to college and I did an animation course followed by Illustration.
Fex:So is this something you do as a full-time job now?
John: It’s become full time. A few years back, it would have been only a part-time but in the last few years its blown up. It has mainly to do with fans of my Dark Souls work, who come to me constantly for commissions, and even if they discovered me from Dark Souls, they want commissions of a lot of things.
A lot of what I do now is tattoo design, so I can’t post the images since people don’t want others to take the design. A shame since I can’t show them.
Fex:So what’s the most interesting tattoo you’ve designed?
John: One that I designed recently is pretty cool, it’s from Final Fantasy VII. Even though I am a huge fan of FFVII and I wanted to draw Sephiroth and such, I had never gone back to draw those characters. It was very cool to design a tattoo like this, we went through tons and tons of designs, the one he went with was: heads on a banner with all his feathers coming out and it looks really cool.
My favorite Final Fantasy is FFIX and there’s this guy in the UK who sells my work, and he’s begging me to do a Final Fantasy collection like the one I did with my Dark Souls book, but I don’t know if should do it…
Fex:How does the creative process work? Is it different when you have a commission?
John: As an example, for the Dark Souls art, most of the time it is what I want to do. I start by roughing out thumbnails, which is basic things such as poses and compositions. Once it actually clicks you develop the rough, which can be seen in the video. It’s all about composition and design, and building and building until you’re happy where all the lines are, then I just ink it.
As far as commissions go, people usually have an idea of what they want. I try to get as much information as possible from the person when we start the process because a lot of people change their mind a lot.
Fex:What techniques do you use with your work?
John: For the Dark Souls work, I do it more traditionally. It’s very rare that I’d try to scan it to adjust things such as cleaning it up. Mostly, I get the design right straight away, then pencil ink and whitener plus greyscale markers to tone it.
I actually prefer working digitally but the Dark Sous started off as Inktober so I’ve been using traditional ink for those.
Fex:You made some beautiful art for us, a colored bonfire scene, what’s the technique in this one?
John: I’ve actually done this one like I did with the original Dark Souls work, I inked and toned with markers. After that I scanned and then I do everything else in Photoshop.
Fex:When drafting, how do you decide which is the piece that you will continue on?
John: It’s some sort of universal language. You know what looks good and what doesn’t. When you do art for so long, certain compositions just look appealing to you… it’s like listening to a good song or watching a good movie. You just know what works and doesn’t, it’s kind of like instinct.
Fex:Why is so much of your work torso up?
John: It’s funny, some people ask me if I can draw legs. It’s like watching a guy run and ask them if they can work. If you have basic drawing skills you know how to draw hands, feet, poses.
The reason why I do upper body is because I like decorating pictures, I like the design aspect and composition. When you add legs to pictures it takes away from how nice you can design the upper body. I wanted to keep that as a series so when I did the first Channeler with upper body only then I did all the rest the way. It’s just Dark Souls that I haven’t done full character bodies. If you look at my other work, I have tons of pictures that are full body.
Fex:How did you find the change from Dark Souls styles to Bloodborne?
John: I don’t want to say I prefer the Bloodborne design but I think if I was to draw the Bloodborne characters I would enjoy it more. I think they are more decorated, and on my art I add a lot of details and add a lot of stuff that is not on the original design. As long as the character is 70% familiar, I’m allowed to play around with the design as much as I want.
Fex:What’s your favorite out of the Souls works you’ve done?
John: My favorite is the Big Hat Logan picture. I love it. But everyone loves the Artorias and Sif picture that I made, including loads of people who have that tattoo now. There’s a lot that I don’t like though.
Fex:Do you work with other content creators?
John: There’s a few big name people that have shared my work and messaged me. I think that’s great. But I’m not really big into online socializing and it has nothing to do with not wanting, it’s just not naturally in me so my girlfriend is the one who talks to people. She’s really into Dark Souls and the speedrunning community at the moment and she’s really good friends with all the speedrunners. She intereacts with them a lot more than I do.
Fex:Are you looking forward to Dark Souls 3?
John: Yes I am looking forward to it. I have this rule where I stay away from trailers and all that stuff. So for Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne I went in looking at as little as possible, which I think was worth it as I was surprised about absolutely everything.
I’m really looking forward to Dark Souls 3 but it’s mainly to do with the character and weapon designs.
Fex:Have you considered creating your own weapons galleries for publishing?
John: I would be interested in doing that, actually. I tried entering the Monster Hunter weapon design contest a while back, I had a really cool idea with a giant Mallet called “Royal Family” with a bunch of crowns at the top that were the spikey part of the weapon to hit people with. I thought it a really nice design, but they obviously didn’t. (laughs)
Fex:How should people commission work from you?
John: I can be reached by email atjohndevlinart@gmail.com. All you have to do is tell me your idea and I’ll do roughs first before asking for payment. I don’t like getting paid before we are both happy, so there’s no reasons for them to be upset if I do the wrong thing.
I make sure that the design works first, then ask for payment. I work with every color, size, format, and the price only goes up a bit if people ask for coloring, so it’s pretty much everything.
Fex:What is the biggest piece of art you’ve made?
John: When I was back in college we’d have to do large pieces of work in A1 pages. As far as illustrations go, back when I was 17, Kingdoms Heart was very big, and I did an A1 size poster with every single Kingdom Hearts character on it. I was so proud of it!
It’s one of those things that when I look back now I cringe, but at the time it was the biggest picture I’ve ever done. I don’t like working that big anymore.
Fex:How do you see your role within the Souls community and what part do you think you play in it?
John: I think it’s pretty cool that I’m doing art for this. There seem to be very few artists doing art for Dark Souls and a lot of people that message me are really into the game, and they are just so happy that someone is doing artwork consistently.
I’m constantly being asked to draw characters that I haven’t done so I’m always making a list of people who I haven’t gotten around to. I like doing Dark Souls art, I’ve met a lot of amazing people doing this, it’s really a good community.
Our next interview is the very well known Sunlight Blade.His YouTube Channelboasts more than 230,000 subscribers, making in one of the largest in the Souls community. At just 19, he attends courses at his local university and creates content for the series he loves during his free time. Find him on Twitterhere.
Cas:Tell me about yourself, where you are from, what your hobbies are and what you do when you’re not making content for YouTube.
Joel: Hi everyone, I’m Joel, also known as Sunlight Blade probably to more people. I’m currently living in the UK, I’m 19 and I spent most of my life growing up in Africa. I’ve actually lived in the UK only 5 years, even though I was born here.
What I like to do aside from making videos… Well, I’m in the university at the moment so I don’t have much time to focus on any other hobbies.
Cas:What’s a typical day in the life of Sunlight Blade?
Joel: I wake up… I’m living in University Halls at the moment. I usually get ready and run down to University Course because I most likely have a lecture I need to get to. I do an English course so there’s a mixtures of lot of lectures and essays and practical work. So, it’s getting all my lectures and work done for the day, and then get back to my halls and work on my YouTube videos or manage my YouTube account.
Cas: So these guys you go to university with, do they know that you have thousands and thousands of YouTube subscribers?
Joel: I’ve kinda actually been struggling with that. No one actually knows that I do YouTube, I’ve had kinda kept it a secret. It’s always been something that I’ve questions, as to whether I should let people around me know, or whether they even need to know.
Cas:When did you get into gaming and what are some of your favorite games?
Joel: I got into videogames at quite a young age, even though my parents weren’t really too keen on it. My first console was a Playstation 1, and I liked mostly platforming games: Crash Bandicoot, Abe’s Oddysee, Sparrow. I wasn’t allowed to play that much (laughs).
I got older and transitioned to Age of Empires, Age of Mythology on PC. They are sort of strategy, historical games where you control armies and that kind of thing. Funny enough, I was never really interested in medieval setting action-roleplaying games so it’s very surprising I got into the Souls games at all
Cas:How did you first get into the Souls Series?
Joel: I had heard of Demon’s Souls in an online article. The thing that caught my eye was that there were messages that players could leave and you could read them to see what traps they had fallen into. A while later, I went into a game store and was searching games and I found Dark Souls. In my mind, it did not click that they were linked or related, but I saw the back and it read “Prepare to Die“. I had never really seen a game advertised in that way before, it seemed like a new thing. I never really do “impulse buy” without research, but for some reason with this one I did. I guess you could say it was lucky because I found the best gaming series ever.
Cas:That is unusual, most people heard of it from somebody.
Joel: Yeah that had never happened before and has never happened since.
Cas:When did it all “Click” for you?
Joel: I was playing Dark Souls, I just got to theCapra Demonboss in the Lower Undead Burg. I was about to go in, and I got invaded by some tank guy with aDrake Sword. I kid you not, I almost died in my chair right then and there. I didn’t know you could get invaded! I knew you could leave messages and things, I’ve been reading those, and I was just on the brink of really getting into the game. Then this person invades me, and you know you question whether its a human, what is going on. I remember sweating, I had to hold my heart because it was pounding so much I thought I was gonna die. It was unbelievable.
I tried to go and kill him fast, but I was doing no damage. Looking back, it was a fair fight, he was about my level with legit gear and everything. He ended up killing me with some Drakesword R2s, but it was that moment. It actually gives me fond memories of that whole Capra Demon area.
Cas:So what made you want to make videos for the Souls Series? What were your inspirations?
I went more for build showcases when I started, so I actually just had a camcorder balanced on a pile of books pointed at my TV screen and talk into it that way. The quality was terrible, my commentary was terrible, all that kind of stuff.
If it wasn’t for Dark Souls, I doubt I would have ever uploaded a video
Cas:What’s your favorite thing about the souls games?
Joel: I think all the components come together to make an amazing experience. You can’t have one piece without the other. But I do specifically very much like the online and multiplayer features. I’ve always been a fan of multiplayer. When I was young, I only played single player and since I was living in Africa the internet was not very good. Then when I got older and we moved to different countries I found out that there were games you could play with other people in other parts of the world. It really fascinated me and it really amazes me. I think that aspect is my favorite part of the souls games, and its implementation is so unique. You build up your character through the main game and then other players can interact with that part as you’re going.
Cas:So why the name “Sunlight Blade”?
Joel: That’s kind of a boring story. In Dark Souls, there was a buff that you could apply to your weapon. For some reason, even other buffs were better, I would almost always apply this buff to my builds so when I started my YouTube channel I wondered “How can I make myself memorable”, and then thought that since I always use this miracle I may focus my channel around it.
Cas:How do you decide what videos you want to create, and how does that creative process work for you?
Joel: I make videos that I would enjoy watching. There aren’t many people in the Souls community making similar kinds of videos. Sometimes I make videos with friends, when we findmini-game ideasto do within the main game. Like I’ve done a hide and seek video within Dark Souls. So I think of an idea like that, then I think whether I need people to help me, and who would be good for it or is up for it, and then it just goes from there.
For things like the Top 10 Series, I used to play a game called Runescape. It’s an MMORPG, and people did a “Top 10 Plays of the Week”. I remember thinking “I wish someone did something like this for Dark Souls” and then I talked with a few people about it. At the time, the community was very different and they told me that it would not be fun, nobody would watch it. I thought I would give it a try and it resulted in a pretty successful series.
It’s getting inspiration from anyone and everyone. Don’t ever think that there’s some people you could never be helped by.
Cas:How do you see your role within the Souls community and what part do you think you play in it?
Joel: I wouldn’t say I have a huge important role within the community. If anything, my role has been to maybe broaden the demographic a little bit, bring more types of gamers into the community. Also, just to have fun and spread positivity. That’s what my roles is and I’m ok with that.
There’s no problem with hardcore gaming, but everyone can play the Dark Souls games. In the old days, it was like “not everyone can play these games” and I’ve had people tell me that some don’t deserve to play these games, but I don’t think that’s the right mentality.
Cas:Is there anything in particular that you hope makes a return inDark Souls 3?
Joel: One thing would be theRat Covenant. Just… better. But really, I do not understand why we have not had an Arena like in Dark Souls. We could have 2v2 fights, drop down into arena, respawn right at the top, then drop back in for 6 minutematches. Constant fast-paced action. One of the problems with the Souls games is that there’s a delay time between each multiplayer encounter. That arena really sorted things out and I don’t see why they haven’t implemented that in Dark Souls II and Bloodborne. Taking it out, I think, was a mistake.
We hope you were thoroughly entertained and that you learned a little bit about those two wonderful people. Stay tuned for the next episode in the series, where we will bring you two different members of the community on our quest to get to know them all.
Fexelea
MMO raider by day and guide writer by night, Fex enjoys multiplatform gaming, good books and animes, and streaming with a cold beer.
Thanks to everyone who sent suggestions, we are organizing more interviews!
Nice! I remember watching SunlightBlade’s videos when he was new.
I actually have been in contact with Vaati on a regular basis (even through that whole incident a bit back) and he said he would like to be part of the project. We’re planning on having him on an episode, just unsure which one at the moment.
Cas
Sorry, i meant controversy, not conspiracy…
I don’t want to stir anything up but i feel it needs to be asked. Do you plan on covering Vaatividya? I know there is a certain amount of conspiracy regarding his videos right now, and i am curious how you intend to handle that, if at all?
We have quite a few people lined up, the interviews are fun but the video editing takes quite a while so please be patient for the next episode in a couple of weeks!
Please reshare if you liked it, spread the word about the awesome people in the community\0/
I remember Sunlight Maggot, I watched all of those.
Awesome series, this was a great video. Looking forward to more!
Tremendous stuff. I really like this concept.
Can I nominate myself?
Just kidding, I’d love to hear from Craddoc (challenge run streamer) or if you can find him, Sunlight Maggot. His YT series Dark Souls: The Movie was just fantastic, but he gave up on YouTube last year which was such a shame. He did excellent work
If you guys haven’t seen this video yet, it is really well done. Give a look see and nominate your favorite content maker
Cas
Great feature on these creators, can’t wait to see more. May need to see about a new tattoo… You know I have to say I agree with Sunlightblade on the 2v2 arena. When they first released the Battle of Stoicism expansion I kind of groaned, but once I actually gave it a try and found a consistent group of 4-6 people it became this nightly obsession for us. Through playing, we all kind of realized that 2v2 was so balanced when compared to 1v1; you could bring any build or tactic and not get labeled this or that. And as he mentioned, that go go go, 6 minutes in the pit then back up to the cages to drop back was relentless and awesome. Never thought I’d say it, but I miss its inclusion since then. It was like a whole different game, we used to call it Souls Calibur.
Leaving this here as the first comment:If you’d like to propose someone to be featured, please PM me!You can contact me via the forums here or on fexds.chatango.com (you don’t need an account!)
