Since its earliest days (and thanks in large part to its trademark Fatalities) Mortal Kombat’s identity as a fighting game franchise has been rooted in its visual display. We’re now more than three decades into the Kombat experience and presentation continues to be top notch, and while a lot of that is owed to technological advancements, everything still starts with talented artists putting pencil to paper.
One such artist is Vlada Hladkova, who has worked with NetherRealm Studios on both Mortal Kombat 11 and Mortal Kombat 1. Vlada recently starting posting some of her early Mortal Kombat 1 concept art to her X page, and once we saw the initial examples, we knew we had to share.
Thus far we have concept art for three MK1 kombatants: Sindel, Sub-Zero, and Raiden. Not only do we get variations in costume and accessories, but sometimes also in character physical features and apparent age.
Sindel, for instance, sees some seven different costumes as the artist toys about with her purple and silver color scheme. She also looks noticeably younger in these drawings than in her traditional in-game appearances, to the point that we’d go as far as to say she looks a good bit like her daughter, Kitana here.
Sub-Zero gets a few variations as well, one of which makes him look as though he’s about to go into battle with White Walkers from Game of Thrones. Hladkova includes many vicious points in some of her samples here, giving the characters all the more of a violent, ready to head into battle feel about them.
Raiden gets 10 different looks in the included art, altering his hat, staff, and robes in most. It’s easy to miss some of the details artists go to painstaking lengths to get right, and some of these images highlight those as they offer varied textures, patterns, and the like.
Give the awesome MK1 concept art a look with our gallery below, and let us know what you think of these (and if you’d prefer any of them made it to the final product) in the comments section below.
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