Summer Update! Plus SteamWorld Dig!

It's been an extremely long summer, and I've been working like crazy, as usual on stuff I can't really post. Work on Boon Hill has gone really well, with most of the graphics basically done! Secret comic project I probably shouldn't talk about is well into its second issue, and a few other smaller projects have been coming together very nicely!

While I haven't had much time to post any fan art, I have been making time to actually play new games occasionally. I'm happily making my way through Pikmin 3, which is charming as all hell, and was lucky enough to win a copy of Mutant Mudds Deluxe from Jools Watsham himself! Awesome! I even  beat Dillon's Rolling Western, after putting it aside for months due to the last level kicking my ass too hard.

Among all the gaming fun, I think my personal favorite has to be SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt by Image & Form. This game totally snuck up on me, but I'm glad I took the plunge and bought it, as it was one of the most fun experiences I've had on the eShop, which is already full of great games. Set in a goofy, steam punk Wild West populated by ornery robots, SteamWorld Dig sees players taking the roll of Rusty, a young steambot who has inherited a mine from his now deactivated uncle. Rusty takes over the mining operation, but his approach is more Megaman X than Harvest Moon.

The game is basically a sidescrolling platformer of the highest sophistication. A combination of wall climbing, double jumping, running, and high jumping means your range of movement is pretty damn impressive by the end of the game, which is important because your environment is unpredictable and complicated in the best way possible. The three major areas of the game world are basically giant sandboxes, and you're free to dig your way through them at your own discretion, so the layout of the level is largely up to you. Want winding corridors? How about a straight drop down hundreds of feet? Need steps? Carefully tunneling can yield whatever result you like! Each area ends up looking like the inside of an ant hill, and I found myself eagerly tunneling and retunneling, making short cuts and alternate paths. The act of actually tunneling is just so satisfying. It's like Dig Dug, but massive and full of exploration and wonder.

The other major component of the game is character progression, which comes in two forms. The first is through Metroid or Megaman X style powerups that augment your abilities, thus granting the aforementioned super jumps, double jumps, and running, as well as a few different weapon modes, good for both combat and tunneling. The other form is through RPG style purchasing of equipment, which basically serves to raise your stats. Armor gives you more health, new water tanks allow you to use your steam items longer, upgrading your core allows you more light for exploration, and each of your weapons can be upgraded for easier digging and destruction. The deeper you go, the heartier the earth becomes, so its important to keep on top of these upgrades. The growth of your character really feels palpable, and its extremely satisfying to see how strong and mobile Rusty becomes.

I really can't say much more about SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt without giving away too much information, so I encourage anybody with a 3DS to at the very least check out some videos. Image & Form has apparently experience some success with the game, so I look forward to their future outings on the eShop.

That's pretty much it for now. I'll probably post some stuff in the near future about my time with Game & Wario, which I liked but don't have time to talk about now.

Back in Business

Man, after a busy few months, I've finally decided to start paying a little attention to this place again. I always liked having a blog, and being able to see my stuff all in one place. I've been really busy lately, and I supposed I have a lot to show for it. A Kickstarter game that I'm working on, Welcome to Boon Hill, recently far exceeded its funding goals and got tons of positive attention, which was really cool, but I'll be posting more on that in the future.

For now, just some stuff that I've had sitting around. My scanner has been busted for a while now, so I've had to start doing all of my work entirely digitally, which was far from easy for me. Just for fun, here's some pieces to chart my progress.

More Dillon! I REALLY like drawing this guy, even though I'm definitely not great at it.

Medabots! Used to love this show, and spent quite some time pining for a localization announcement for Medabots 7. No luck so far, though...

This guy shouldn't really be familiar to anybody. Antagonist from my short lived indie comic, Heckbringers! He's the youngest of Heck's royal family, Prince Ick!

Finally, a little tribute to the newest Castlevania game, Mirror of Fate. I really enjoyed this game, particularly the character designs.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'd like to start putting up more of Super Mario and Luigi over the summer, so hopefully I'll get some pages up here soon!

Some TV Tribute Pixel Art!

Just a few recent pieces of pixel art. I guess I've been watching alot of TV lately, since a good deal of my work is done at home in front of a computer, and have been occasionally doing some unorthodox fanart of my recent favorite shows.

First of all, I've been watching a ton of Supernatural. I used to watch this show when it first aired, but lost track of it fairly early on. Recently a friend showed me a few highlights from later seasons, and I was pretty surprised. It's a surprisingly funny show, not entirely unlike Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the characters manage to be totally likable and complete assholes at the same time. Good stuff. I'm particularly pleased wth the logo text, and of course their signature car, the Impala, down in the corner there. Turned out very well.

 Next up, Adventure Time! Again, watched this show when it first aired lost track of it, and was surprised to find out how far along its story has gotten! After watching some recent episodes I've been really impressed, but generally the show has had very good writing all along. Jake and the Ice King are my two favorite characters, but Finn is not without his charms.

Finally, a fairly large sprite of Adult Swim's Black Dynamite. I wasn't sure if this show was for me at first, but after watching a few episodes I really have alot of respect for this show. Not only is it funny as hell, but it manages to capture the spirit and feeling of an anime without just aping the aesthetic. I also really respect the high mark they shoot for with their animation, even if they don't always quite hit it.

Anyway that's all for now.

Nintendo Power Mentions Me!

Just got a comment from a reader alerting me to my presence in this month's Nintendo Power! It's been months since I sent my work in, so I had actually forgot about it altogether! It's a shame they only printed one image to go with the text, but oh well...

To celebrate, I thought I'd post some of my recent work I've been holding back on!

First, some Castlevania goodness! As part of Game-Art HQ's Castlevania Tribute, I've created two pieces. The first is a tribute to Castlevania 64 hero Reinhart Schneider and his vampiric love interest, Rosa.

I've talked about Castlevania 64 on this blog before, and I still feel that for all it's flaws, this was the last Castlevania game to really nail the atmosphere, challenge, and spirit of the classic games.  With this piece, I wanted to create a sense of drama and sadness. I'm not sure that everything turned out as well as it could have, but I'm generally pleased with the palette and lighting.

 The second piece is a tribute to another black sheep from the Castlevania franchise. Castlevania: The Adventure was the first game in the franchise for Nintendo's Gameboy, produced between Simon's Quest and Dracula's Curse. The game is ludicrously hard and pretty sparse on features, but has some genuinely cool level designs considering it was 1989. Christopher Belmont is possibly the slowest Belmont in the history of the franchise.

 Next up, a tiny piece of Mario fan art. I've recently been playing an absurd amount of New Super Mario Bros. 2, and while many gamers have lamented the lack of innovation, I have to say that the level designs are absolutely awesome. There may only be a handful of new powerups and enemies, but the new stages are intricate and quirky, and I've loved every minute of coin hunting goodness. The biggest draw for me is probably the Coin Block power up, which turns Mario into a fountain of golden goodness. The sensation of speeding through a stage as coin's erupt from your head is truly satisfying. I've cleared every stage and found every Star and Moon coin, but hopefully I'll have time to download and play some of the DLC stages in the future!

 Next up, some more Konami handheld love. I've always been a fan of the Mystical Ninja games, so when I saw the Gameboy game on the eShop I downloaded it instantly. It's a fun little action RPG, but goddamn is it ever hard! The mini-games are absurdly difficult, and the unforgiving nature of the game means that perfection is absolutely necessary. You'll see the Game Over screen so much, it might as well be a character.

Now on to some TV love! I'm about half way through exposing my girlfriend to the joy and horror of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, decided to do a bit of fan art! I've always dreamed of what Buffy would be like as a manga series, so this is my take on a title page. Someday, I may even do a few pages of the actual comic!

Adventure Time is a series I've been catching up on lately, and very much enjoying. My favorite would have to be the Ice King, but generally speaking it's a series with great characters and a surprisingly involved world. I'm eager to find out more and more about the world's history, and the most recent episode has only opened up more questions!

Okay, that's enough new stuff for now.

An Awesome Commission

Got something REALLY big to show off today. This piece was commissioned by a friend of mine for use on a Magic: The Gathering play mat, and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.

For anyone not familiar, this particular scene is from the game Dark Souls, by FROM Software. Anyone that's played the game probably remembers this scene with some dread, as the Capra Demon is one of the nastier encounters early on.

Anyway, just wanted to share this piece, as I'm really pleased with the end results. Can't wait to see this bad boy printed up...

Good DSi Game! Ace Mathician

What the heck is a Mathician, anyway?

 
So math was really never my strong point. Some of that had to do with my gnat like attention span as a student, as I spent most of my time doodling Saint Seiya and Fist of the Northstar during math class, but I think I can safely say that math and I never really got along. Knowing this, I was somewhat hesitant to download Ace Mathician, fearing that I would lose interest once the math element frustrated me. I'm pleased to say that this was not the case.

Ace Mathician is basically a simple platformer, with an interesting twist. Platforms can be moved by entering an equation, similar to the graphing function on a high end calculator. Luckily, the game only gives players a handful of options in each stage, which are all single screen affairs, so the correct equation or series of equations is never too far out of reach. As the game progresses, levels introduce new elements, including simple enemies, multiple equations, and even some slightly advanced math type stuff. It's nothing you need to crack a text book open for, but it's nicely challenging.

Although it's usually pretty simple to get to the goal, each stage has three gold stars that require some tricky math and careful platforming to  collect. Snagging all three stars in every stage of a world unlocks a bonus stage, and collecting every star in every world unlocks a whole bonus world. There are stars to collect in the bonus world, of course, but they don't unlock anything. The game's gotta end eventually, right?

This is my first experience with Goodbye Galaxy games, but after playing Ace Mathician I'm very interested in checking out their previous work, Flipper and Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish. The charming pixel art, catchy music, and quirky gameplay make for a very appealing and approachable package, and the $1.99 price tag certainly doesn't hurt.

If any of this stuff sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend you check out Ace Mathician on your DSi or 3DS, or at the very least take a peek at the official website.

Quick Update

Don't have a ton of free time today, so just a quick little post. Got a little tired of doing fan art, so I decided to return to a character I haven't drawn for some time. So here we have Johnny Matchead, former protagonist of my web comic, Basurake, discovering some kind of elder horror.

Like I said yesterday, I might be reposting the comic he starred in, or maybe doing some new ones. I guess we'll see.