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TR25 Box Art Reimagining: Shadow of the Tomb Raider by Ross Tran

Dec 13, 2021

A vibrant promotional artwork for "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" featuring a stylized depiction of Lara Croft drawing an arrow on a bow, with dynamic red and blue streaks in the background.

2021 is drawing to a close and we’ve had months of nostalgic celebration thanks to our community! We’ll have a few reimagined box art pieces debuting this month and to start us off, we are very excited to reveal our collaboration with a super talented artist for Shadow of the Tomb Raider!

If you frequent YouTube, this artist’s gorgeous stylized portraits of fictional characters have probably shown up on your feed. He has even published his own book, Nima, which he hopes to create an animated series out of. We’re talking about none other than Ross Tran, better known as Ross Draws!.

Ross Tran is an illustrator and concept artist that just recently landed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. He loved making up characters and worlds as a kid, which is something that hasn’t changed much over the years. He began pursuing art more seriously at 16 and moved from San Jose to Los Angeles a year later for a degree in Industrial Design.

By 19 he had worked on his first feature film, Earth to Echo, as a character designer. A while after, he took a break to try his hand at acting, only to find a home on YouTube with his channel RossDraws — where he makes lots and lots of art.

Ross actually chose to draw Lara Croft in the past, inspired by the Survivor Trilogy! This time around, we were thrilled to collaborate so he could bring a reimagined piece of SOTTR’s cover to life.

Ross particularly liked the jungle elements seen in Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s environment and wanted to implement it into his work. When asked about his inspiration for the piece he said:

I’ve said this before, but one of my favorite things to draw is strong female characters. In this piece, I wanted to give homage to the iconic Tomb Raider look while adding my own spin to it. As I was sketching this piece, I knew I wanted something instantly recognizable with Lara in the jungle.

Since my work is typically known for more magical elements, I wanted to add the ethereal flaming arrow to bring a sense of fantasy to the piece. I was, at first, leaning towards a more classic pose with guns (since that’s the Lara I grew up with), but ultimately went with something more dynamic. As a fan of the series, I really loved bringing this to life and it was an honor.

You can catch more of Ross’s incredible work on all of his social channels! 

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