Young Lara Croft

Acrylic on hardboard, 18” x 24”

I wanted to illustrate something that hadn’t exactly been tried yet so this piece depicts Lara caught in one of the traps placed throughout the island where Lara gets yanked upside down and has to defend herself from this inverted position. Not a situation you want to be in, even on your best day.

The most time-intensive aspect of creating this piece was getting the details right. The game developers put an incredible amount of detail into their art design this time and I wanted to reflect that. But since I didn’t have the game itself yet, I spent a lot of time looking for reference at the Tomb Raider site. It seemed like every time I watched another piece of demo I’d see something that required a minor adjustment to Lara’s costume.

The most challenging aspect of the painting though was getting Lara’s expression right. Since she isn’t a seasoned combatant at this point, I wanted her to look both frightened and formidable, inexperienced yet determined to defend herself at the same time, which I discovered was not the easiest combination to pull off. I don’t even know if I did pull it off, but that’s what I was going for.