Old Cartoons Nobody is Nostalgic About - Part I- Mummies Alive!

I'm not sure if it's something particular to my generation or what, but it's been hard not to notice the growing power of nostalgia in entertainment media. It seems like everything from my childhood is weedling its way back into mainstream culture in one way or another, whether it's the bizarrely self-aware schmaltz fest that is Fuller House, or the return of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Nickelodeon (and on the big screen, no less), and the general sentiment among audiences seems to be if we remember it, we like it.

There's nothing wrong with that, exactly. I love that Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon have any kind of presence in the modern world, and some times these nostalgic revivals turn out kinda good. Still, sometimes it feels like everyone is always talking about the same handful of things, and in a world where Youtube allows for the archiving of literally all media ever, it seems like everything imaginable has been tapped for its potential money making nostalgic power.

Of course, that isn't true. For every show that has remained in the hearts and minds of an entire generation of sad twenty somethings, there are hundreds that simply fell by the wayside; perhaps it was an unfortunate timeslot that doomed them. Perhaps poor marketing did them in. Maybe they were just god awful garbage. Who can say why a generation of youngsters latched onto Digimon while Flint the Time Detective is left to rot in obscurity. Regardless, the yesterday of animation is full of cartoons that very few remember fondly.

I consider myself something of an expert on this topic, for a few equally insipid reasons. First of all, my family didn't have access to cable television until the early 2000's, which meant the bulk of my childhood was spent desperately trying to find something to watch on tv. I couldn't afford to be terribly choosey, so I frequently got into shows that nobody else was even remotely interested in. I also stayed interested in cartoons much longer than most people, as my growing interest in Japanese cartoons during my teen years also reinvigorated my love of animation in general, so even in high school I was eager to watch new cartoons, as well as revisit old ones. I suppose my desire to make cartoons (I didn't settle into comics as my medium of choice until a little later) also kept me looking at animation a little more intently, but whatever. The point is, I spent ALOT of time watching shows nobody else cared about.

Due to my insatiable urge to resist social media trends at an almost animal level, I find myself drawn to this type of nostalgia wasteland whenever I feel like getting sappy, safe and assured that no modern executive will ever care to revive these shows like so much cannibalistic zombie matter.

With that totally unintended but remarkably appropriate transitional sentence, I finally come around to the first show of this type I'd like to discuss: Mummies Alive! Here's the intro, courtesy of Youtube.

Yeah. The basic premise is covered pretty well there, but for the sake of summary, a young boy is the reincarnation of an ancient Pharoah, whose guardians are brough to life in the modern day to protect him from an evil sorcerer. The premise is similar to Disney's Gargoyles (in fact some of the creative staff was the same if I remember correctly), but Mummies is significantly more toyetic than its high profile competition, which is both good and bad. Sure, there are tons of barely justifiable gadgets and vehicles, but the character designs are absolutely awesome. I remember thinking this show had a decidedly Capcom look to it, as if they had decided to do an entire Darkstalkers spinoff about Anakaris, and for me that really elevated the show to a more enjoyable level aesthetically.

It also had a rather strong anime vibe to it, with lots of slick action and sylized transformation sequences. The whole "transforming into badass armored forms to fight bad guys" trope was one I had loved since seeing Samurai Pizza Cats and Ronin Warriors (both hack jobs of anime series I wouldn't see proper until later), and it would be years before I was exposed to its originator when Cartoon Network aired its disasterous hackjob of Saint Seiya as Knights of the Zodiac, so Mummies Alive! was right up my alley in that regard. I could definitely have imagined a badass 2d brawler or fighting game based on this series, and I bet it would have LOOKED awesome.

There was also something kind of neat about a series steeped in Egyptian mythology, regardless of how garbled by horrible puns it may have been. It was (and somehow still is) pretty rare to see a hero of any kind of color in cartoons, and the entire cast of Mummies Alive! is basically from ancient Africa- although the mummies in modern day have a kind of blue-gray pallor, in flashbacks they're all varying levels of brown. Given my background, it was a rare treat to see characters that were ostenibly representative of me, without them being stuck in the background as a more typical white character took the center stage.

As one would expect, there was a toy line based on this series, and although I never personally owned any of the figures, I have to say they look pretty badass. Here's an ebay auction for the whole set, so you can get an idea of what we're dealing with:

Mummies Alive! Figures!

Pretty freaking sweet. I have to admit that it is absolutely awful that the ONLY female character, the cat themed warrior Nefertina, never got a figure, but considering even today this kind of bullshit happens to some degree (Avenger 2 and Force Awakens, anyone?) I guess it's only too typical. Still, the figures are pretty cool looking, and show off the stylish armor designs of the heroes and villains pretty well. There were also some pretty cool villains that never got figures, mostly big animal people, but I guess the toy line didn't really have a chance to take off.

At the end of the day, Mummies Alive! Kind of came and went without really making much of a mark on the world. There's little to no fan art online, which is almost mind boggling, and the series has never had a proper release, and probably never will. I sincerely doubt anybody will be trying to reboot or leverage this series for any kind of modern entertainment capital (although a Mummies Alive! live action movie invariably starring the whitest actors imaginable would be hilariously typical), so it's probably safe to just appreciate this little time capsule of unsuccessful entertainment for what it was and is: a goofy show about Mummies in magic armor fighting evil.

A few notes before we go: in the event that anyone actually wants to watch the series, I'm pretty sure most of it is available on Youtube, so by all means check it out. Secondly, I can't say I'm actually interested in doing special art for every show I talk about here, but I found the designs from Mummies Alive! so cool that I couldn't help but want to draw them.

Thanks for reading about a cartoon you probably didn't watch!

Some Bird Force Nonsense!

Bird Force, my awesome game idea that I can never seem to finish, has been an enduring shadow over my thoughts for almost two years now. Although I may not have the time just now to focus on bringing this vision to life, I thought I'd at least share a little art and keep the dream alive!

I'm also just trying to draw as much as possible these days, for both practice and personal satisfaction. For how much I love Bird Force, I've produced surprisingly little art related to it, and my recent Star Buster art has been coming along so well I thought I'd branch out a little. The composition is a little more ambitious than the previous digital stuff I've been doing, and I'm honestly not great at drawing birds, so this was a fun project. I literally hated the way it looked until the minute it was finished, so I guess it can be cool to see how something can come together.

Uh... that's it I guess? More Star Buster next week!

The Heat is On as Star Buster Atom Continues!

Another busy week, kind of, so another last minute page. Still, one a week is better than none a week, right? I happily just wrapped up a job that was pretty demanding and time sensitive, so the stress is off for a little while at least, and next week should see a normal set of pages for the update!

I also managed to do a little bit of colored art this week, so please enjoy another cool promo piece for Star Buster! I'm really having a blast working on my digital work, and I think my recent stuff has been really moving into an interesting direction.

That's it for now!

Star Buster Atom Barely Continues with a Minor Update!

Okay, so I had a pretty hectic couple weeks with freelance work, personal things, and weather disasters, so I didn't get much done in terms of the comic. That said, I didn't want to post nothing this week, so this week's scene is short, kind of a little aside. I like drawing the snack shop girl. She's a cutie, plus I like the idea that random acts of kindness can mean alot more to the recipient than you could ever expect!

Also, here's a slick color illustration I did just for fun! Maybe a cool cover or at least chapter title type thing, and the first time Adam and Stella have shown up IN FULL COLOR! WHAT!?

Okay, that's it.

Update Dump of Ultimate Guilt!

Sooooo... I know I said I was going to be posting more, and that I was going to have more free time. One of those things turned out to be true! But I swear, I haven't been not posting because I haven't been doing stuff! I just haven't done anything finished enough to show off. Sad, but true.

So what have I been up to? Well, Mario Maker got me in the mood to hit game development again, and with a vengeance. I actually put together a little Castlevania style platformer that was shaping up nicely, but honestly that will take a very long time before it is actually done. A finished stage as a demo isn't out of the question, but even that would be a little ways off. I'll dump some of the graphics and screenshots up here in the future, but that is a story for another time. Here's a mock up of th first boss fight, just for fun!

I also did a crap load of work on Nova Phase, the 5th issue of which will probably be done this week. That means it will come out like... in February probably, but whatever. It will be good to be close to completing the series' run, and some of the art in this issue is pretty awesome. Maybe I'll post some spoilers. Maybe.

I've also been trying to take steps towards finishing some other little projects that have been sitting around. It is my genuine intention to do one more chapter of Janken before doing an Amazon e-book or something of the whole thing. The cover is done, and the "last" chapter is thumbnailed, with a few pages even penciled, but that's it on that. Here's a look at the updated cover and logo.

A lot of my down time has been spent basically practicing my digital work, including lots of inking and sketching. Some of these turned out pretty cool, so I'm posting them here for fun!

This one was a concept design for a comic my old collaborator on Heckbringers was thinking of doing called Dragonomics. Not much to say about that yet, but could be seeing more of this little rascal in the future. He's up to some other stuff, which I will post about a little later this week.

Anyone who follows my blog knows I come back to this guy every now and then. I'm working on a small project involving him that is going really well so far, but I want to have a bit more of it done before I post it here.

Another one that comes and goes pretty frequently! I don't remember why we stopped working on this game, but I love the designs from it and I'm trying to find some place to use them here. Ideally something that wasn't a full blown comic, but I guess we'll see.

I've got some other stuff brewing, but this is the major stuff. I'm also finally biting the bullet and sitting down to remake and ultimately finish the original Bird Force in a more reliable program. There were was supposed to be a pretty involved story, and a handful of characters that never made it into the version I posted here because I was terrified Construct would collapse and I'd lose what I actually had done. I'm working in Multimedia Fusion to program a definitive version of the game with all the features I initially imagined. It's going well considering its literally been one afternoon of work. Hopefully more on that in the near future!

Okay! That's it! I'll probably be posting another small comic later this week!

Tumblr Halloween Fun: Monster Collection!

I know I'm a horrible slacker that hasn't posted here in forever, but I promise I'm a busy guy. Kind of. Whatever.

Anyway, I have actually been using the Doki Doki Arcade tumblr an awful lot lately. As I mentioned long ago, the tumblr is basically a sketch dump where I post cool doodles from my notebook, the kind of thing that mostly gets lost forever. If you dig my art at all, and want to see the stuff that eventually becomes the nonsense I normally post here or on Deviantart, then definitely check it out. Especially because I am actually doing a thing. A cool thing. Yes.

Whether out of some misguided desire to extend the Halloween season at every opportunity, or out of a recent madness involving playing way too much Fossil Fighters, I've been drawing ALOT of monsters lately. Initially it was just a fun way to warm up, but as I was driving to work this week, I had an idea; what if there was a monster battle game that played off of ACTUAL monsters as its theme? Sure, Venusaur or Metal War Greymon are kind of monsterous, but they're not exactly scary. I'm talking like, horror movie creatures done up like adorably collectible little imps. With that in mind, I started doing a daily doodle, every day a different monster, leading up to Halloween. No clue what I'm gonna do when I'm all done, since I should end up with like 60 distinct little nightmares to play with, but stickers or cards are definitely possibilities.

I'm gonna post the first three here right now, because I just can't post anything without a picture or two, but definitely check out http://jmatchead.tumblr.com/ to see more as the days go by.

 First up is an adorable Frankenstein's monster style creature. Part Android 8 from Dragon Ball, part Viktor from Dark Stalkers, I love his everything, but his mismatched arms and electric power are definitely his strong points.

 Next up, a frantic Wolf Man style creature. Inspired mostly by the original Universal Lon Chaney Jr. look of just a hairy guy, but also has shades of the wolf guy from Shining Force.

I wanted to subvert all of the mystique that vampires have accrued over the years and make this guy goofy as hell.

Can you imagine catching these guys and having them battle for you? That Frankenstein, which I am now realizing should definitely be named Frankenstrong, would have some absolutely sick attacks.

Anyway, definitely check out http://jmatchead.tumblr.com/ for more monsters! Tomorrow may just be a mummy!

Splatoon Will Probably Be Better Without Voicechat

So I've been pretty excited about Nintendo's bizarre third person shooter, Splatoon, since it was unveiled at e3 last year. It's a novel take on the third person shooter format, in that it focuses on territory control over just simple combat, in addition to a slick art style and all ages appeal.

It's also been plagued by complaints at almost every step of its development. Initially people were upset at the lack of basic deathmatch, despite the fact that deathmatch gameplay would both undermine the key innovation at the heart of the game, and be redundant, since you can get that experience in almost every other third person shooter on the market. Dumb.

The newest controversy has surrounded Nintendo's decision not to include online voice chat in the game, with some people going as far as to have their entire purchase decision based purely on the lack or presence of this single feature. People seem to think that Nintendo is refusing to get on board with a feature that has become standard, and therefore a necessity, because they are old fashioned and out of touch.

First of all, these same kinds of complaints have been happening forever for Nintendo. Whether it was their decision not to switch to CD with the n64, or their decision not to focus on online connectivity with the Gamecube, Nintendo has long had to battle against the perception that they are the old heads of the industry. Mind you, neither of the above decisions were objectively bad; both consoles still had tons of excellent games, many of which provided experiences that were totally unavailable on other consoles. But subjectively, people's expectations were betrayed. Subjectivity is the issue here.

I think we live in an age where the individual opinion is perceived as being more important than ever before, but it seems that this has caused people to lose perspective altogether. The line between subjective judgment and objective truth has been blurred to the point where I don't think most people even try to discern the difference. I understand that true objectivity is nearly impossible, but I think you can get pretty damn close if you keep an open mind and look at things from a distance.

Subjectively, any set of arbitrary expectations can be used as a standard for judgment, but that's irrational and self centered. We've come to view games purely in the context of how they conform to our own, largely arbitrary, preferences, as opposed to independent pieces of art, to be experienced and learned from. Nobody cares what creators have to say, unless they are spilling details on DLC.

At the end of the day, we're faced with a pretty simple choice. Do we want to be pleased and entertained, or do we want to explore and experience? If all we want is the gratification of our expectations, then all we'll get is banal redundancy. Splatoon might not have the exact feature set of any other third person shooter, but that's because it isn't supposed to be any other third person shooter. It's a different approach, and in a world full of copycats and me-toos, we ought to relish those differences.

Soap box speech over.

Genius Dialogue in New Page of Heckbringers!

Hey, that's what you get when you don't ever write a script, right? My process on this comic is completely backwards and probably a terrible idea, but whatever. Working out so far!

Confession time. When I started doing Heckbringers as a feature here, I literally thought about it zero seconds. I had the characters and setting and what not from an older project, and figured it would be an easy way to get a color feature going on here. Then, of course, I started actually doing the comic, and after a few weeks I came to a startling discovery.

I had absolutely no idea where I was going with it.

This was tough, because it threw some real bumps into the whole weekly feature thing. I was lucky to have Weeping Pines in the wings anyway, and I'm glad it encouraged me to get it out there, but I seriously feared I would have to give up on Heckbringers before I even made it to the first fight scene (probably not a good way to measure the progress of a comic, but whatever).

Maybe there is something stimulating about the rushing of water, or maybe isolation really does lead to self discovery, but I think I tend to do some of my best thinking in the shower, and sure enough, without any explanation or warning, I suddenly had a rush of ideas. They came slowly at first, but one thing very naturally led to another, and before I knew it, I had the entire story outlined. Not just the first chapter either, but like, the entire arc of the whole series. So there I was, with a sweeping post apocalyptic epic fully formed in my brain, butt-naked and dripping wet. Hot.

Not really sure why, but I thought it'd be fun to get that insight into my creative process. Sorry! Weeping Pines on Friday!

SURPRISE! NEW HECKBRINGERS PAGE!

Got it together this week! For whatever reason, this page took me a long time to conceptualize, but I'm happy with the results. Other than this taking kind of forever to move along, I think it's turning out pretty well so far. I'm having some trouble keeping Gubba remotely on model, but I do seem to enjoy his look more and more each time I draw him, so I guess that's a good thing. Next time, maybe we'll actually get to see that axe do something! Maybe.

Of course, I still have another strip of Weeping Pines to post some time this week, which I hope I will be able to keep up with. It's a story I've had on the back burner for a while now, a little over a year, but I habe no idea whether it will be any good. I hope it will.

In other news! I have finally sat down to play one of the many Dreamcast games I bought online over the summer, so look forward to hearing about my experience with Blue Stinger in the near future! I also may soon have something to show off of a new game project, which is a collaboration with a buddy of minem with whom I also do a podcast, which I will soon link to. Busy!

HECKBRINGERS PAGE 004! TECHNICALLY ON SCHEDULE!

Okay. So I got real real sick this weekend. Had this page inked LAST Sunday, but that didn't stop me from ALMOST being late with this one. It is late. But it's technically still Tuesday, and here it is. Four weeks in a row! That's practically a big deal. I think at this point, I might even start actually scripting these! Wouldn't that be fun!

It's a lot of fun to draw Gubba. He's like, part frog, part dragon, part Bowser, and he really is a satisfying figure. I hope this color scheme isn't getting too old just yet. I'm trying to slowly add some little nuances here and there, and at some point maybe the entire city won't be red. But probably not.

JA-JA-JA-JANKEN!! is for real almost done. I think I have two pages left. After that, I think Nova Phase will be the main focus for me, although I'll definitely keep doing a weekly Heckbringers. Hopefully I'll post something else this week, maybe an article about something. We shall see!

HECKBRINGERS AGAIN! Three Weeks in a Row!

So on the plus side, I have actually managed to keep up a solid weekly schedule for three consecutive weeks. If you are someone that has followed my work in the past, I think you will agree that is something of a shock. On the other hand, I haven't posted much else in between, and the whole point was to be delivering more smaller chunks of content. I guess technically I'm still doing that, and one post a week is still better than one every few months, but I want to do better.

That said, I have a fair amount of material in the pipeline, so to speak, including another new comic in an entirely different format, designed to be a serialized micro-comic, of sorts, and of course the next chapter of JANKEN!, which I have slacked off on a little bit. I will do better.

As far as HECKBRINGERS goes, I am pleased with the product so far. I'm experimenting with a different process, which I think will be my go to procedure for works done in color, which I think everyone tends to enjoy a bit more. The story is moving a long nicely, and it's refreshing to work in a weekly format again.

Speaking of, I have plans to leverage my somewhat sizable  body of previous work, most of which is no longer available anywhere, to help fill in content around here when I am busy. Be excited!

MORE HECKBRINGERS: A Second Page!

I bet you thought I wasn't gonna post another page of this! I bet you figured I NEVER follow up when I say I'm gonna post more of something. Well, normally you'd be right, but I'm turning over a new leaf around here. Thus, I present, the next page of Heckbringers!

I'd also like to point out that this even came in a timely fashion! I think I can probably swing one page a week of this comic. Should also have JANKEN! done for next week, which would be cool. After that, in addition to trying to rotate one more comic in (as a substitute while JANKEN! goes on a hiatus) I'm also going to be trying to finish the next issue of Nova Phase, which some might remember is the comic that I illustrate, published by Slave Labor Graphics. The 4th issue came out online a month ago, and the second paperback edition, collecting issues 3 and 4, just became available on Amazon recently! I'll post an official promo thing tomorrow, but for now feel free to go look for it!

Of course, what that next comic is going to be is still up in the air. There are a lot of choices, even if I only look at ides that I've already mentioned here, but for all I know I might feel like doing something totally new. Who knows!? Either way, it will follow a similar format to JANKEN!, in that it will be six pages and black and white. I'm also contemplating adding one more format into the rotation, perhaps an even smaller one, Bazooka Joe style or something. If I could somehow give you guys gum through the internet, I would.

I still have another big announcement waiting in the wings, but I'm so busy I haven't really had a chance to make the most of it. It involves games and is exciting, maybe. 

New Ongoing Comic: HECKBRINGERS!

Trying something a little different today. I really want to post here more frequently, and part of doing that involves  experimenting with some content that is a little less time intensive on my end. The articles are good because they require relatively little preparation, but I don't want to go too long without posting any art, and although I will continue to post more shirt designs and stickers (I promise those are coming), I think narrative art is really my strong suit, and I want to do more of that. JA-JA-JA-JANKEN! is nearing the end of it's first major story arc, so I thought now would be a good time to start introducing a new ongoing series to experiment with.

A few things to note. First of all, this series will be posted in single pages at a time. This means less work on my end in between postings, as I don't need to finish a whole set of six pages to post an update. This also means that each page will be a little more self contained than before. This also means that I'm more able to spend a little extra time per page, and as a result, I'd like to keep this format in all color. It's certainly not necessary, but I think it's fun and adds a lot. 

Heckbringers is actually a comic that me and some friends put together years ago, and even printed a book or two of, but this version is going to be a bit different in tone and execution due to the shift in format. I may post some bits of the old comic, or some designs for characters and such, but for now I'll just be posting single pages here and then in between other things. JANKEN! Will still continue for at least another chapter, after which I may rotate in a different series to be the six pager. This will help keep things fresh around here, and hopefully build up a colorful and fun cast of diverse characters to play with.

For now, enjoy the first page of Heckbringers, in glorious COLOR! I have a few other announcements to make this week (all good, exciting things!), and a few more articles planned, but I need to get some things in order first. Be excited, please!

Bayonetta 2 Pixel Art and Twitter Glory

So Bayonetta 2 is getting pretty near release in North America, and I'm pretty excited about it. I've loved Platinum Games since back when they were Clover Studios, and more games from them is always a good thing. I absolutely adore the Wonderful 101, but I sadly missed out on Bayonetta, as I didn't have an Xbox 360 or PS3 when it came out, and never found the time to pick it up subsequently. The Wii U rerelease packaged with Bayonetta 2 will be my first time playing the original, and I'm looking forward to it.

It's been a long time since I did a real good demake, partly because nothing has caught my fancy and partly because I've been busy with other things which have occupied most of my time, but I enjoyed doing this kind of thing and thought it might be fun to do again. The goal was to picture a scene from Bayo 2, as if it were a classic 2D action game, ala Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden.

I'm probably most pleased with the sky, as capturing the sort of ethereal radiance was very tough, but I also am pretty proud of how much of Bayonetta's features I was able to squeeze into that sprite. People tend to 'oooo' and 'aaaaa' over really big sprites, but honestly those are much easier to make good, as they start to just become small drawings after a while. It's REALLY challenge to turn a hundred or so pixels into something that looks like anything, let alone a specific character, so I think I accomplished something good here.

I was also granted the supreme honor of having Bayonetta's real life daddy, madman Hideki Kamiya retweet the image with rare enthusiasm. Probably the first post I've eve made on Twitter that ANYBODY has ever looked at. Yay!

In other news, I'll be wrapping up the fourth issue of Nova Phase this week, which means it should be on (digital) store shelves in the near future, with the print compilation of 3 and 4 available on Amazon soon after. I hope. I'll make an announcement. In the mean time, issue 3 is available on Comixology now, so if you haven't already, check it out!

https://www.comixology.com/Nova-Phase-3/digital-comic/104319

Also working on the next chapter of Ja-Ja-Ja-Janken!, which is coming along nicely. With Saturday morning cartoons becoming officially extinct like, next month, I feel like my work on Saturday Morning Anime is more dire than ever.

Lots of work on AtomMan

Was seized by the desire to work on AtomMan, a project I've been working on and off on for a very long time. It was actually the first ever game I ever made, waaaay back in like 1999, when I was just a 6th grader! It originally started as a MegaMan fan game, but after a little while, I guess I wanted to make up my own bad guys and such, and it turned into a VERY thinly veiled ripoff, parody, homage, or whatever you want to call it. The sprites were even just crappy recolored versions of MegaMan characters, with pretty minor tweaks. There was a great deal of humor in the game, and some pretty terrible and basic gameplay, but I felt pretty accomplished.

Now, years later, I couldn't really resist the urge to look at these characters again, and I started to think that maybe there was some potential here. Sure, it started as a pretty basic ripoff, but some of the designs had genuinely cool elements, and I thought I could re-imagine it into something much more original, while still obviously honoring the games that inspired it.

So yeah, the inspiration is probably SUPER OBVIOUS, but I think this turned out really well. I don't want to talk to much about the story just yet, but these guys are the main bad guys.

Now, because I can't focus on anything, this is both a comic and a game, so here's some of the animations and such I've whipped up!

 Look at him go! These are just his basic animations, but there are going to be tons of other weapons and maybe even forms to take on. To get started, though, I think these are coming along nicely.

I also mocked up a little screenshot today, which I think turned out well. This is the first time since being a kid that I've gotten this far on this project, so it's pretty exciting.

 Not  finished anything yet, but just trying to establish the look of the game. Obviously very MegaMan inspired, not going to debate or deny that, but I want to push this game into some pretty out there territory. I want to try to bring all the things I loved about the Legends and Battle Network games into the basic gameplay of a 2D classic MegaMan game, but there's elements of other games from this era that I really loved back then, including Shenmue, Brave Fencer Musashi, Legend of Zelda and Mystical Ninja.

OKAY! So that's what I got so far. Feeling pretty good about it so far, but definitely a work in progress.

Pixel Art for Fun and Profit

I don't know how forward I've been about this in the past, but damn would I love to just do pixel art professionally. I've dabbled in doing freelance stuff, like Boon Hill, and arguably Nova Phase is pixel art, though I don't really make ANY money off of that, so it's more like an expensive hobby than a job. I have still never seen any of my work, including freelance stuff, used in a finished game, except Bird Force, which I made myself and still really isn't done. I see tons of games come out that still utilize pixel art, so obviously somebody somewhere is doing this stuff for a living. That's what I want, but man,  doing something for a living is really hard when nobody will give you any money for it.

But still, I just love doing the stuff. I guess that's why its kind of weird that I've never tried bringing my work into the physical, real world, like that cyber demon from that one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You know the one. I've seen people do these little bead jobbies, and always thought it would be cool, but I don't generally think of myself as a craftsy person, so I never got into it. It's weird, but I just never did it. Until today, of course, when my fiance thought it would be cool to make a pixel art cake topper for our wedding. Good on her, because I think I might do a ton of this.

This was my first attempt at bringing a pixel work into the real world, like said Buffy episode. Moloch the Corrupter was the name of the demon, just looked that up. The sprite I used hasn't been shown off before, and is for a new project that is super early in development, a dice battling game called HyperDyce. It is in fact as ridiculous as it sounds, possibly more so, but more on that later. This is the player character, a scumbag dice battler called Jackalope Winfight, as he appears on the overworld between battles. But I've already said too much.

There's something remarkably satisfying about physical things. Pretty much all of my work is confined to the digital world, so being able to hold something I've created in my hands is kind of amazing. Although Nova Phase was intended to be a digital comic from the get go, getting my hands on the printed volume just felt really cool, and was actually the first time I felt genuinely excited about the whole experience. This is the first time I've been able to have this experience with my smaller scale pixel art, and I really like it.

I need way more of these little boards, and an assload more beads probably, but I think I'm gonna be doing alot more of these, maybe even selling them! I love the idea of making and selling stuff, maybe because of some weird, RPG, Animal Crossing brain problem, but whatever.

Don't Worry, I Fixed Gunvolt's NA Design!

Sarcasm. Even though the changes to Gunvolt's design are minor, I think it's kind of telling that someone, somewhere, though that North Americans would be uncomfortable with the exposed navel and braid. Like, he looks a little fey, that's no good in America. Just the first step in the BS backslide to the era of horrible hack job localisations. I really thought we were beyond this kind of thing.

Anyway, so I just decided to push things all the way back and make a bad boxart Gunvolt. Done quickly, but it's supposed to be ugly, after all. I hate just looking at it... but at least it made me think about doing more painting in the near future. Anyone interested in hand painted posters of Bird Force!? No? Okay. I might do them anyway.

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.

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...

More Comic Goodness

Today's random bit of comic goodness, featuring Dillon's Rolling Western! I thought it would be fun to do a game that was relatively new, and there's a sad lack of attention for this wacky little gem. I've done Dillon fan art before, twice, as a matter of fact, but this is the first time I think I actually got him more or less on model.

This was actually pretty hard for me, because Dillon has a very abnormal body type. Animal people are always sorta hard for me to draw, particularly when they're more animal than people. I'd like to draw more of Dillon in the future.

I desperately want to do a feature on Deadly Towers, as I've found it to be one of the most sadly misunderstood games of all time. It's basically Dark Souls for the NES, and is actually pretty innovative, structurally speaking. I might throw some art together in the next few days highlighting some of the game's cooler elements.

More Super Mario & Luigi coming sometime this week as well!