July 20th, 2009 by Amanda
I was fortunate enough to get an interview with Greg De Stefano, photographer of the Super Smash Bros. portraits entitled BRAWL. You can check out all of the brawlers here. Also view the previous post about it.
FantasyIRL: First, I just I want to say again just how amazing these pictures are. I felt you really captured the personalities of each character so well. Looking at them I found myself thinking, ‘yeah, I could totally see (insert character here) doing that’ or ‘they would definitely lose and be confined to a wheel chair’ or ‘they WOULD be a total badass.’
Thank you again for letting us do an interview with you.
Greg De Stefano: Thank you for your compliments, it is really encouraging to hear from so many people and I am quite flattered. BTW I love the Fantasy IRL name as well, so much of my new work now has been incorporating fantasy into real life and I’m glad we are getting the chance to talk.
FantasyIRL: What initially influenced or motivated you to take these pictures?
Greg De Stefano: It was actually the result of something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile, some kind of creepy Mario and Luigi pics, like them taking mushrooms and a slutty Peach. And I was trying to put together my own shoot when my roommate (Daitenshi / Sheik) was like, “Why don’t you just ask Matt and shoot the There Will Be Brawl guys?” That kind of cinched it, and this has grown into something I never could have expected.
I got my degree at CalArts in Photography and Integrated Media, so video game and conceptual art has been a passion of mine for awhile. Especially the work in I AM 8 BIT. But I never really found the right segway to combine it all until BRAWL.
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