This was brought about by IRyS singing Simple and Clean in Karaoke. I’ve always loved Kingdom Hearts. Chain of Memories on the GBA was the very first KH game I played. The box art was what drew me in, so I thought it’d be a cool project to recreate it for IRyS.

I started out by designing a keyblade, which took me a week because I couldn’t make something that felt like it would fit in the KH universe while looking like an actual key. I dislike keyblade designs that don’t look like keys, so it took a lot of attempts. It took a while to realize that I could use the replay symbol for the teeth of the keyblade. After that, it was smooth sailing. For the abilities, I wanted to make it into a strong late-game keyblade that encapsulates IRyS’ tunnel vision playstyle. I probably spent way too much effort making additional art to show off the keyblade, but I feel like the struggle with the design process alone made it worthy of a separate piece of art to showcase it in its entirety.

I designed the outfit to be a more combat-oriented version of IRyS’ default outfit, where the skirt, sleeves, and heels were changed into something more practical. I used the patented Tetsuya Nomura approach of adding belts and chains to make an edgy design while trying to keep the clothes faithful to the original. The leg sigil was made by combining IRyS’ symbols with common core elements of KH symbolism in the spikes and crown.
After all of that came the absolute hell of drawing the cards and the illustrations for said cards. I just went wild with it and had a laugh while making Kronald, Goofau, and the rest of the cast. It’s not 1:1 to the box art, but I think it came close enough. I had to make adjustments and concessions because the pose and silhouette are bigger by comparison.

I’ve learned a tremendous amount of things with this, even though I was basically just copying the composition. There were so many tricks I ended up using while making it that I never considered before. The sigil/emblem design alone took 5 hours. Tetsuya Nomura is a genius for cranking out so many interesting designs throughout the years.

This took me a month of planning and work to complete, and while it may just be worth a few seconds of people’s attention as a work of art, I feel like I gained a deeper appreciation and love for video games as a result of creating this piece. I hope people enjoy it; I know I did!