The Last of Us artwork is the visual creative work associated with the franchise, which includes the 2013 PlayStation video game, the 2020 sequel Last of Us, and the 2023 television adaptation, Last of Us: The Game, with Season 2 set to air in 2025. Each has developed its own collection of concept art, promotional imagery, key art, character design and environment illustration, and each has created a market for prints, posters, and collectible editions from low-cost licensed reproductions to museum quality limited editions giclées.
The concept art for The Last of Us is a testament to the work and artistry that went into its creation. Naughty Dog wish to emphasise the incredible talent of the artists and designers in the games industry, these are the people creating our visual culture.
Key Takeaways
- The Last of Us art is a mix of official concept art created by the Naughty Dog game studios, promotional art for the HBO series, fine art prints for limited sale, and a huge fan art and licensed reproduction market.
- Naughty Dog artists John Sweeney, Maciej Kuciara, Aaron Limonick, Hyoung Taek Nam, Eytan Zana, Shaddy Safadi and Nick Gindraux (and others) created the official concept art collection of the original game.
- Cook & Becker, in collaboration with Naughty Dog, created an official fine art print collection of museum quality certified art giclées, artist signed, hand-numbered, and accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity.
- Last of Us Season 2 was released on HBO on 13th April to 25th May 2025, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Season 3 is currently being filmed.
- Fan art and unofficial prints can be found on Etsy, Redbubble, and Society6, from $7 for digital downloads to $225 for curated print series by popular fan artists like Jake Kontou.
- Dark Horse Comics and Naughty Dog are officially publishing an art book, The Art of The Last of Us, which is the most complete single source of the game’s concept art, character artwork, and environment artwork.
- The franchise’s visual style, which is characterised by overgrown urban landscapes inhabited by nature, warm introspection in character portraiture set against the backdrop of a grim post-apocalyptic world, has become one of the most recognisable aesthetic hallmarks of recent games and television series.
The Concept Art Artists: Who Created the Visual World
Every environment, character and creature the player encounters in The Last of Us was created by a team of concept artists at Naughty Dog that created the visual world of the game.
The Core Art Team
The following are the concept artists listed for The Last of Us: Hyoung Taek Nam, Eytan Zana, Aaron Limonick, John Sweeney, Maciej Kuciara, and Nicholas Gindraux (as primary artists) and Shaddy Safadi, Marek Okon, and James Paick (as additional artists).
The project was developed by each artist with a different specialism:
John Sweeney is a concept artist mostly known for his work in the game’s environments, such as overpass ruins, hunter camps, alleyways and the DLC environments. His painterly style, with an architectural precision and a sense of colour, is one of the most instantly recognisable visual contributions to the franchise of his post-apocalyptic urban decay. Sweeney has created some environment concept art from the main campaign, some of the artwork for the DLC, and has been included in the book The Art of The Last of Us as one of the artists.
Maciej Kuciara did a lot of key art and environmental design, including some of the game’s most atmospheric landscape compositions. Kuciara is a Polish digital artist whose work features in film and game production and can be seen in the treatment of large-scale environmental desolation, or how completely the natural world has taken over human infrastructure.
Street barricades, church at Bill’s Town, snow forest sequences, and other locations were envisioned by Aaron Limonick. His pieces are known to be very sensitive to the particular texture of decay, the process of ageing, crumbling and merging of materials with organic growth over many years.
Hyoung Taek Nam and Eytan Zana did some character and environment work that set the tone for the grounded and photorealistic visual style the game is known for: characters and figures that feel like real people, not game archetypes.
The Last of Us Part II Art Team
The character and creature designs of the sequel were also the work of Alexandria Neonakis, while the art direction is the work of Erick Pangilinan and Christian Nakata.
The Official Art Print Collection: Cook & Becker and Naughty Dog
The biggest formal piece of work into the fine art print market for The Last of Us was a collaboration with a Dutch publisher called Cook & Becker, who specialise in museum quality video game art prints, and Naughty Dog.
Cook & Becker and Naughty Dog have released a series of fine art prints inspired by the concept art and visual design of The Last of Us, which are all limited edition. The concept art prints are museum quality Certified Art Giclées, and are intended to be displayed as the visual design of the game. All prints have been extensively proofed by the artists at Naughty Dog and Cook & Becker’s master printer to get as close to the digital source as possible. The prints are hand-numbered and signed and come with a Certificate of Authenticity signed by the artist.
Works by John Sweeney, Maciej Kuciara, Aaron Limonick, Hyoung T. Nam and Michael Knowland are included in the collection. You can purchase each print framed, unframed or on metal through Cook & Becker’s online gallery. Named after the French word for fine spray, the giclée printing process is a method for creating digital prints at a resolution and colour fidelity close to that of traditionally printed fine art photography.
Limited edition prints of this collection are sold via Cook and Becker’s online gallery at significantly higher prices than standard poster reproductions, due to the hand-numbering, artist signature and certified authentication each is accompanied with.
The information that comes with each print is very significant if you’re thinking of buying something big from this collection. The Certificate of Authenticity by Cook & Becker and the artist’s signature by Naughty Dog adds to the print’s authenticity in a world where unauthorized prints are prevalent. It is helpful to know what a certificate of authenticity for art should include and what it has to do with the edition number and the quality of the print when buying at this level.
The Art of The Last of Us: The Official Art Book
The art book is the most complete source for concept art of The Last of Us.
The Art of The Last of Us was published by Dark Horse Comics in collaboration with Naughty Dog and includes all the visual development of the game, from concept sketches to final designs, environment art to creature design, promotional key art to an in-depth look at the creative choices made by the development team, and written commentary on the visual world.
It also includes the work of all the major concept artists and background information that the prints do not include the evolution from initial sketch to final game asset, the discarded concepts and alternate directions, and the unique challenges of designing a ruined, yet beautiful, world.
The sequel, The Art of The Last of Us Part II, was released after the sequel and chronicles the evolution of the visual language of Part II, including darker colour schemes, more intricate creature design and a larger cast of characters that need to be visually differentiated.
These two books are still available at major book retailers and are still in print. They’re the baseline for any real consideration of the franchise’s aesthetic.
The Artwork for HBO Series is the Season 1 and 2
The HBO TV adaptation also added another set of promotional artwork that is different from the concept art of the game in both style and intent.
Season 1 (2023)
The Season 1 key art, which is a promotional image of Joel and Ellie in profile with a background of a post apocalyptic cityscape, is one of the most reproduced images of 2023. HBO’s marketing campaign had a subdued, warm palette that captured the game’s aesthetic of the environment in a photographic register more suited to a prestige drama than a video game.
Major poster retailers such as eBay or Redbubble have official Season 1 poster reproductions that are available in standard sizes (the most common size is 24 × 36 inches) and range in price from $11.99 to $19.99 for standard poster reproductions.
Season 2 (2025)
The Last of Us Season 2 premiered on HBO on April 13, 2025, and concluded on May 25, 2025, featuring Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna, Isabela Merced, and Young Mazino. Season 2 was met with critical acclaim for its action scenes, direction, acting, and production design, and was seen as a way to solidify the show’s reputation as the best video game adaptation, while some found the pacing issues and thought the season was incomplete without a full season. Season 3 has been renewed.
New characters and a darker aesthetic were introduced in Season 2 promotional art, which came from The Last of Us Part II, the 2020 video game. Season 2 will be available in the same places as Season 1, and official HBO merchandise will be sold in the Max store.
Where to Buy The Last of Us Artwork
Official and licensed sources
Cook & Becker (cookandbecker.com): Official limited-edition fine art giclée prints from the original game’s concept art collection. Hand-numbered, artist-signed, with Certificate of Authenticity. The highest-quality and most authoritative source for collectible game artwork.
Naughty Dog official store (naughtydog.com): Occasionally sells official prints and art books. Please verify availability at the store.
HBO Max / Max Store: Official Season 1 and Season 2 promotional merchandise such as posters, prints and character art products. Licensed and officially credited.
Dark Horse Comics: Publishers of both official art books. Purchase from the big book stores like Amazon, Barnes and Noble or directly from Dark Horse.
Mondo: The Austin-based poster art publisher has released a handful of official The Last of Us poster editions in its regular limited edition format. The Last of Us Part 1 HBO TV Season One poster (Ellie and Joel 24 x 36 inches) has been selling on eBay for about $86.99. Mondo editions are usually limited print runs and sellout fast when released.
Secondary Market
eBay: All sorts of official and unofficial Last of Us art, everything from the $11.99 Last of Us posters to the $225 seven-print series by Jake Kontou. The most comprehensive secondary market for sold out editions and one-of-a-kind items is eBay, which is subject to the buyer’s responsibility to authenticate.
Etsy: Many prints and digital downloads of Last of Us are fan-made on Etsy. The price for digital downloads is $7 and for canvasprints, 45. If official licensing is important to you, check whether items are official licensed or fan created, as this is clearly marked by the seller on Etsy.
Redbubble and Society6: Redbubble is a print-on-demand website which hosts a vast array of The Last of Us prints from independent artists, such as minimalist gaming posters, character portraits of Joel and Ellie, post apocalyptic landscape interpretations and quote-based typography prints, among others, and artists earn a royalty for each sale. These products are licensed in various ways, some are officially licensed products via Redbubble’s fan art programme, others have a more ambiguous licensing status.
Fan Art: The Community Visual Response
Its story and unique visual style have created one of the most prolific fan art collections in both the gaming and television industry.
The Last of Us fans who have done something noteworthy include Jake Kontou, whose seven print series (sold as a set on eBay for $225) uses a stylised graphic method to the franchise’s major characters. The Last of Us fan art can be divided into two styles: realistic fan art that is inspired by the game’s photorealistic character style and graphic poster fan art inspired by the game poster tradition.
Fan art is a grey area of the law. Theoretically, derivative works using copyrighted characters should be licensed. Platforms such as Etsy and Redbubble have a ton of fan art and enforce their own licensing agreements with the rights holders. It is important for buyers to realize that when they buy fan art, they are not buying an officially licensed product, but rather an interpretation of the characters by the fan artist.
The Visual Language of The Last of Us
To grasp what makes The Last of Us artwork so special, you need to understand the visual philosophy that Naughty Dog’s art team created and that the HBO series converted to live-action production design.
Reclaiming the Built Environment through Nature
Nature growing through, over and into the structures created by people is the most defining visual motif of the franchise. Trees growing through cracked pavement on overgrown highways. Shopping malls that have intact roofs, but floors covered with decades of soil and plant growth. Vine-covered windows and moss and fern-covered facades characterize the apartment buildings.
Set in the post-apocalyptic United States, The Last of Us portrays a world in which a mutant fungus has almost wiped out human civilization. The game’s centre is the fungal infection, not only a return of nature to the built environment, but a particular parasite that changes both humans and the built environment into something new and deeply unsettling.
Warmth Against Desolation
The second hallmark of the franchise’s visual style is the contrast between the close-up, warm, human scenes and the cold vastness of the world in which those human scenes take place. The warm amber and orange light is always applied to interior human spaces (campfires, candles, low wattage lamps) and contrasted with the blue-grey exterior colors of the collapsed world in the concept art for the game and series.
This contrast provides the emotion to the artwork. The warmth is not just for looks, it is a sign of safety, connection, and the unique human characteristics the narrative maintains that are worth fighting for. Environment artists such as Aaron Limonick and John Sweeney added this contrast to each of the environments, such as the lit window in the dark building, the fire in the stone fireplace, and the lamp on the table in the abandoned house.
Character Portraiture
The character art, both in the games and the HBO series, is based on a photorealistic approach to portraiture, as opposed to the idealised or stylised approach to character design found in other game franchises. Joel and Ellie are built to resemble certain, worn out, old individuals. They have aged faces, faces that are stressed and faces that are damaged by their situation. The concept team must possess a different kind of artistic talent than the one needed for creating instantly iconic visual archetypes – the ability to capture emotional specificity in a human face.
This is also what has made the fan art community so involved with The Last of Us artwork. The quality of the concept art remains the same as that of the fan art of Joel and Ellie, with the specific expression of two individuals who have seen too much and have decided to support each other.
The Last of Us Artwork as a Collectible Market
Video game concept art has become a relatively new collectible fine art market and The Last of Us fits into a niche within it.
Cook & Becker’s goal is to show the amazing work of artists and designers in the games industry, since they are the people who are creating our visual culture. The Last of Us is a turning point in contemporary gaming, both in terms of the sophisticated story-telling of its characters and the polished nature of the games mechanics and fantastic visual design of Joel and Ellie’s journey through post-apocalyptic America.
Cook & Becker and Naughty Dog are arguing that the concept art for a video game is as much a part of a culture or a commercial product as concept art for a movie or a TV show, that the artists who craft the visual universe of a big idea are entitled to the same respect and the same market.
This is the same argument that can be applied to other popular culture images that have been introduced to the art print market throughout the years. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Gottfried Helnwein, an image of four iconic American cultural figures in a diner, became one of the most reproduced posters of the 1980s, and is another example of the image being taken from popular culture to the gallery and auction market as a collectible fine art object. The Last of Us concept art follows a similar path: something that was developed for a commercial project that is now sufficiently popular and influential to be reworked and revalued as art.
When approaching any collectible art market, the questions that always come to mind for any collector are: What documentation comes with the piece? How is the edition controlled? And what is the artist relationship with the piece being sold? The Cook & Becker prints all three answers. Unlicensed prints from secondary sources do not address any of these.
Price Guide: Price Guide: The Last of Us Artwork at Every Level
| Type | Source | Price Range | Notes |
| Digital download (fan art) | Etsy | $7 to $15 | Print-at-home, not officially licensed |
| Standard poster reproduction | eBay, Redbubble | $11.99 to $25 | Licensed or unlicensed; check listing |
| Canvas print (fan art) | Etsy, Society6 | $35 to $75 | Print-on-demand, fan-created |
| Mondo limited-edition poster | eBay (secondary) | $50 to $120 | Officially licensed; sold out on release |
| Jake Kontou 7-print series | eBay | $225 | Fan artist; notable collector item |
| Cook & Becker giclée print (unframed) | cookandbecker.com | $100 to $400+ | Official, artist-signed, COA included |
| Cook & Becker giclée print (framed) | cookandbecker.com | $200 to $600+ | Same as above with framing |
| The Art of The Last of Us (art book) | Amazon, Dark Horse | $30 to $50 | Comprehensive concept art reference |
Conclusion
At either end of that range, you’ll find real value the creative interpretation of an individual fan-artist, or the meticulously preserved and artist-signed museum-quality giclée print of original game concept art.
The body of work that John Sweeney, Maciej Kuciara, Aaron Limonick, and their colleagues created at Naughty Dog is something that wasn’t fully realised during its creation: a body of visual work that has attained something truly cultural. Their imagery – the roads that were littered with weeds, the fungal interiors, the faces lit by fire of Joel and Ellie – is now one of the most recognisable visual signatures in modern entertainment, in games, on television and in the secondary market they’ve spawned.
The Cook & Becker official print collection is the most reliable way to interact with the original concept art for collectors, while the Dark Horse art books are the best way for fans to get up close with the original concept art. The franchise’s visual language is accessible to almost anyone else, thanks to the prints, posters, and fan art that can be found on a multitude of platforms.
Read the entire library at Shani Levni for other guides to art collecting, visual culture, and the market for original and reproduced artwork.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the name of the person who did the concept art for The Last of Us?
The team behind The Last of Us includes Naughty Dog artists John Sweeney, Maciej Kuciara, Aaron Limonick, Hyoung Taek Nam, Eytan Zana, Shaddy Safadi, Nick Gindraux and others that created the concept art. The Last of Us Part II’s team consisted of John Sweeney, Alexandria Neonakis, Erick Pangilinan, and Christian Nakata.
Where can I buy official The Last of Us art prints?
Official limited edition fine art prints are available through Cook & Becker in partnership with Naughty Dog at cookandbecker.com. These are museum quality certified giclées, hand-numbered, artist-signed and with Certificate of Authenticity. There are also officially licensed posters available in the HBO Max store, and poster retailers for standard reproductions.
The Art of The Last of Us is what?
The Art of The Last of Us is a Dark Horse Comics/Naughty Dog officially published art book that features the game’s concept art, character designs, environment artwork, and commentary from the game’s development team. The sequel, The Art of The Last of Us Part II, is covered in a companion volume. Both are still published and can be found on the major book retailers.
Are The Last of Us prints on Etsy and Redbubble official?
Some are licensed and some are fan made work by independent artists. Etsy and Redbubble are both clear about whether something is an official or a fan item, in their product descriptions. Fan art is for the individual fan or artist and not Naughty Dog or HBO. If licensing is a requirement, check the listing before buying.
What is the Last of Us Season 2 about?
Last of Us Season 2 premiered on HBO on April 13, 2025, followed by a series of weekly episodes up to May 25, 2025, with Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller and Bella Ramsey as Ellie. The season was a remake of the opening of The Last of Us Part II, featuring new characters such as Dina (Isabela Merced) and Tommy’s community in Jackson, Wyoming. The performances, direction and production design received praise from critics. Season 3 has been renewed.
What makes the concept art for The Last of Us special?
The concept art for the franchise showcases two distinct features: the world of nature reclaiming human constructions (overgrown highways, mushroom-covered buildings, candlelight, warm human moments) and the stark contrast between warm intimate moments of humanity (firelight, candlelight, human connection) and the cold vast desolation of the collapsed world outside. The emotional weight of the artwork is achieved through photorealistic specificity, not idealised design, in character portraiture.
What is the cost of printing Cook & Becker’s The Last of Us?
The Last of Us concept art prints from Cook & Becker are available for $100 to $400 and up for unframed prints and $200 to $600 and up for framed prints based on the individual piece and the size of the print run. All prints are hand-numbered, artist signed and come with a Certificate of Authenticity.