September’s Pictonaut Challenge

The start of September heralds the end of summer in the traditional sense and the advent of autumn, in the words of House Stark “Winter is Coming.” I fucking love winter. Winter means that I can wear my coats. I love my coats, they are my armour against the world as much as it is against the cold. But in the interim I’m in Banbury. I’m once again off to see my parents while they’re a bit nearer to my neck of the woods. This of course means getting a train and we all know my feelings about trains. And now comes the segue, dropping like a thunderbolt out of a crystal blue sky, a meteorological phat bassline WUB. Since while you’re reading this I’ll be on a journey of sorts I’ve decided that September’s Pictonaut Challenge will be called The Journey.

The image in question is taken from the critically acclaimed PS3 game Journey. I saw some video demos of it at some point in the dark arse end of 2011 and fell head over heels in love with its aesthetic. I don’t own a PS3 so my chances of actually playing the game are slim, but that doesn’t stop me from gazing lovingly at screenshots from it.  There’s something haunting about the image, but also a wistful sense of hope. I’m not sure who the artist responsible is but I can say that the game’s artistic director is Matt Nava and the character artist is Ke Jiang. After the slightly heavier literary bent I gave last month’s Pictonaut Challenge I think an injection of some fantastical whimsy is in order.

With the picture at our disposal let’s throw on our cloaks of adventure, pour over the map of excitement and head out into the vast, endless sands of the desert of imagination.