I’ve started working on sprites for this year’s HorrorThon, but I’ll be adding things here and there before it starts, mostly to image generators, every once in a while until this year’s HorrorThon starts. I won’t be posting about this on social media, so this is a like an extra thing for those of you who regularly visit the site without me hollering about it on Twitter, Bluesky, IG, etc.

October 11, 2024:

GFX Generators:
– fight-size generator – Marvel vs Capcom ending: new backgrounds include Castlevania Level 5 and final boss fight remakes and a horror-themed theater lobby (seen in videos, never in the generators until now).
– Last year I silently added an unfinished Nurse sprite to the “ScrollBoss – cosplay ladies” character. That sprite just got a lot of fixes, details (a secondary uniform color) and more color separations, including the secondary uniform color and shoes. The original and longer skirt versions are still tests until I’m sure everything works, then I’ll add a few more variations.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Castlevania
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Wrapping up the month with a few odds-and-ends before getting back to work on some commission and then getting ready for the you-know-what in October.

Game Index:
– Crime Fighters: a bit of rewriting, plus extra outside confirmation that the game was the template for Konami’s later brawlers, thanks to a great interview Time Extension had with some Konami staff members who worked on it.

mini-logos:
– DC Comics: the 1976 DC Bullet (welcome back, best DC logo)

ToyBoss: a few new photos added, mostly of my newly-acquired 52Toys Mike Haggar figure.

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Arcade Quartermaster‘s update is live, too! Two new shrines: Data East’s ninja platformer Hangzo and Konami’s Jackal (a.k.a. Top Gunner)

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Reminder that Rob ‘Dire51’ Strangman (author and creator of the OPCFG, West Mansion Splatterhouse fan site, and more) has a Kickstarter campaign for four of his books about gaming and more, including updated versions of his previously released books. Please check it out, back it if you can, and spread the word about the campaign!

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Another game-related Kickstarter from a long-time site runner to check out is the NES Endings Compendium: Volume 2. This one is from Rey from the VGMuseum, one of the best screenshot and ending resources out there (and my first go-to site choice when I need to look at screenshots I haven’t taken yet).

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So… if you’ve been on social media you may have noticed that people have been trying to bring back goofy arguments from 2016 while the the world feels like it’s on the verge of falling apart for frighteningly real reasons. Really, some of them never stopped, checking in every few months to see if they could get any traction off the grifts again. A while back I’d joked that if this is what’s hot in the streets right now that I’d just start reposting my 2016 updates and acting like they’re new. Now that 2016 nostalgia is at its peak and more annoying than ever, I’ve made a decision about October: I’m going to bring back something dumb from 2016, too.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Crime Fighters, dc comics, Final Fight
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Right now I’m starting work on an old commission request, but I have a few new, overdue, and fixed things for the site.

Custom Sprites:
– DC Comics: Catwoman’s character gallery is fixed (thanks to the site visitor on IG who let me know that was broken before), she now has her own little row on the main page. I also finished and added the Batman Returns and Golden Age Purple Dress versions of her calm stand pose, originally done for the Catwoman sprite display for a Batman video showcase long ago but not added to the site until now.

GFX Generator –
– Marvel vs. Capcom 2 characters/sprites of Ruby Heart, Hayato (Star Gladiator), Amingo finally added (JustNoPoint rips).
– Marvel vs Capcom ending: the Punisher (arcade) and MvC2 skins added. I made the MvC2 skin’s font by hand based on the font in the credits and score screen, forcing everything into 8×16 spaces as it’d be in a CPS-2 game

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Rob ‘Dire51’ Strangman (author and creator of the OPCFG, West Mansion Splatterhouse fan site, and more) has a Kickstarter campaign for four of his books about gaming and more, including updated versions of his previously released books.

I’m looking forward to the material I haven’t read yet and re-reading what I’d read before. One of the things I’ll continue to mention is that I’m grateful he wrote a book talking about the early 80s from a non-rich kid point of view, especially when talking about things like the now-mythical Video Game Crash of 1983. There are also interviews with game creators and other people in the industry and contributions from others in the fan community. If you want to know how much community is in the mix, I drew all the covers and was one of the people who requested a music-related question to arcade Strider director/artist Kouichi Yotsui about a fan-favorite character. Please check it out, back it if you can, and spread the word!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: dc comics, marvel comics, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the Punisher
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Time to wrap up this year’s 1989 celebration with new sprites and a new video!

Custom Sprites:
– Final Fight: big update for my 2019 Rolento FF1 sprite
– Ninja Gaiden: new Bomberhead sprite added.
– Strider: new Strider Hiryu pose (based on the Famicom ad from the unrealeased game) and a new side-view idle sprite of the Grandmaster added
– Marvel Comics: Dazzler (heavily updated sprites + new separate and more accurate PotX and Konami outfits) and the Juggernaut (PotX) (appeared in the 1989 NES Uncanny X-Men game and 1989’Pryde of the X-Men’ cartoon pilot)

The new custom sprites were added to the Fight-size generator.

Bad news: the video is ALMOST ready. It’ll be added to the YouTube Channel and this post either later tonight or tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, but I’ll try to make it worth the wait.
The video is now ready! Here’s the Revenge of 1989 Sprite Showcase video!

Technically I should’ve called it a Showcade (multiple showcases), but some aren’t even whole showcases, but… whatever, man.

This hasn’t been an easy month (for offline reasons), so a lot of items I’d planned just aren’t ready yet, but you’ll see previews of a few (especially the backgrounds) in the new video.

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The Arcade Quartermaster site just updated, too! New shrines of Battle Shark and Riding Fight have been added.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Final Fight, Golden Axe, marvel comics, Ninja Gaiden, Strider, X-Men
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Time for a little 1989 Boss Rush update!

Custom Sprites:
– Mega Man: Alien (Mega Man 2) added
– Strider: new Strider Hiryu pose (based on the Famicom ad from the unrealeased game) and Tong Pooh pose (and sub-gallery) added
– Shinobi: Shadow Dancer boss (from the Revenge of Shinobi)
– Marvel Comics: White Queen Emma Frost (appeared in the 1989 NES Uncanny X-Men game and 1989’Pryde of the X-Men’ cartoon pilot)

The new custom sprites were added to the Fight-size generator.

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Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: marvel comics, Mega Man 2, Mega Man series, Shinobi series, The Revenge of 1989, The Revenge of Shinobi, X-Men
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Today’s update has fighter-sized sprites of movie characters from 1989 and some new Kunio/RCR 8-Bit style sprites of 1989 game characters!

Custom Sprites:
– DC Comics: 1989 Batman and criminal from the opening scene, and a generic Joker gang member.
– Movies: Indiana Jones (Last Crusade style). Also, this gallery now has navigation near the top that takes you directly to a movie’s section by clicking on its mini-logo.
– Kunio-Kun/RCR 8-Bit style: Haggar, redone Poison and Roxy, and Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) from Do the Right Thing (1989).

Mini-logos: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade added to movies.

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The bigger sprites and mini-logo were added to the Fight-size generator and the Kunio/RCR sprites were added to the Fakescreen generator.

Bonus 1989 content: my pre-ordered TMNT VHS April O’Neil figure by NECA just got here weeks ahead of the ship date. She’s in both the arcade and NES TMNT games that were released in 1989, so she’s theme-appropriate!

I thought I missed my chance to get this earlier, so I feel lucky here. I’ll try to get some photos of her and the green machine (I have all four VHS box-release Turtles, too) before the month is through.

Reminder: The Revenge of 1989 – (35th anniversary edition) Sprite Showcase hits at the end of the month and I’m mostly working on that. Here’s a few teases of what else I was working on this week:

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Batman 1989, Do the Right Thing, Final Fight, Indiana Jones, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
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It’s the ninth day of the eight month, that means it’s time for the ScrollBoss site to revive The Revenge of 1989!

What’s the deal with 1989? The short answer is that a lot of beat ’em up, hack ‘n slash, and platformer games featured heavily on this site debuted that year, 16-bit games hit North America, the portable system revolution started, and a ton of other things, some of which you can read about here.

Custom Sprites:
– Final Fight: redone Guy idle/fight stance sprite, modified ‘arms crossed’ taunt sprite to match the new idle.
– Golden Axe: redone Tyris Flare select screen pose
– Mega Man: non-MvC-look Mega Man in the NES pose
– Strider: Soldier (red and green)
– Shinobi: Yet another attempt to sprite Yamato, that good wolf from Shadow Dancer. Will it be the last? Who knows? Is it in today’s update? Yes.

All of the new custom sprites have been added to the main gfx generator, where I made the screenshot at the top of this post.

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If this were just some normal year this update would be it. But this year is the 35th (!) Anniversary of 1989, so it’s time to do something special once again. There will be more site updates spread throughout August, ending with something I really wanted to do in 2014 but couldn’t: a video. Here’s a preview

Until then, get ready for more pixel art next week!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Golden Axe, Mega Man, Shadow Dancer, Shinobi series, Strider
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ToyBoss: Additions to the galleries, mainly of the 52Toys Captain Commando figures outside of their packaging, including a group shot of the team and another with Cap next to Hasbro’s MvC:I Ryu and Bandai’s 66mm Mega Man so you can see how they scale next to each other.

I planned to have more toy photos added in the site anniversary update a few weeks ago, but July has kept me really busy in some unfun ways. But I’ve gotten even more things since then. The first Target run I’ve made in a long time led to finding a Jakks SMB Toad (completing the SMB 2 line-up!) and a regular Bebop and Rocksteady set by NECA. I think I’ve bought more NECA this year than every other year put together, they’re getting better about keeping their stuff available. Marvel Legends Ghost Rider (paid for with a lot of gift cards) and classic Warbird/Carol Danvers help fill out two of the 3D Marvel vs. Capcom game rosters. This is the first time I’ve ever had toys of Ghost Rider AND his bike. I have unboxed pics of Ghost Rider and Shredder’s two favorite henchmen on the ToyBoss page.

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While we’re talking about toys, one of the big San Diego Comic-Con toy announcements was for a Marvel Legends two-pack of Sentinels based on the Konami game, including the rock that a few of them use to throw at the player. The Hasbro Pulse store exclusive sold out the day that it went up, but keep an eye out for it to be back in stock, possibly during the Pulsecon event in October. Hopefully they make more of these than they did those Hellfire Club troops.

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August is almost here and that means the site will be in the revenge business on the 9th. Eight month, Ninth day? Yes, it’s time for that theme again, and it’s going to be more than one update.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Captain Commando, Toy Haul, toyboss
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It’s the 24th Anniversary of the site, so I’m here with a variety of newness! It’s all game-related, even the comic and cartoon characters are game-specific. Beat ’em ups, platformers, and fighting games are all repped here.

Custom Sprites:
– Double Dragon: Abobo (victory pose)
– Fighter’s History: new sprite of Fighter’s History series hero Liu Yungmie
– Metroid: Mother Brain
– Popeye: Popeye the Sailor Man (finally, I know, I know)
– Marvel: the Punisher (new pose), female ninjas from Capcom Punisher game

All new custom sprites added to the image generators, except for the really tall Mother Brain sprite, only the shorter version is in there since it seems to work in most big scene situations.

Sprites: the Punisher (more sprites)

Also added or updated in the generators: Akuma/Gouki (Cyber-Akuma sprites)

ToyBoss: I just got my pre-order of the 52Toys Baby Commando figure from HobbyLink Japan in the mail this week and took a picture of the whole squad still on the cards. I’ll be opening them up soon and taking more pics, and I can’t wait because they all look amazing. For now, I’ve added a pic of the crew to the Toyboss page.

I found a comic book article that talks about the really early plans for Data East’s “Avengers in Galactic Storm” and even has pictures of an earlier 3D character model for Captain America in a different style. I put it in a blog post with scans large enough for you to read. You’ll find a lot of interesting info like the earlier roster plans, more confirmation that Iron Man’s home game rights interfered with how he was used in arcade games for years, and the original genre-bending plans for the Story Mode.

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Thank you for visiting the site and extra thanks for the people who reply here in the news posts and elsewhere on the internet! Due to offline reasons I didn’t get to do all the things I’d planned (Cadillacs and Dinosars, more SNK stuff in the generators), but I’ll try to work them into future updates. I just want you to know you’ve been heard!

There are a few things that still need to be done (better scans for the Avengers article and putting Popeye’s mini-logo in the gallery, I’ll work on that over the weekend.

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added July 20th, 2024:

Popeye had his Ninento mini-logo in the image generators, but it wasn’t in the Toys and ‘Toons mini-logo gallery. now it is, along with a new mini-logo of his 1970s logo with in the 1980 movie colors.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Avengers in Galactic Storm, Double Dragon, Fighter's History, marvel comics, Metroid, Popeye, the Punisher
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Street Fighter Alpha 3: All of the standard Vs. portraits have been added from the arcade, Playstation, and SFA3 Max PSP versions. I can’t guarantee the PSP rips 100% because I had to fill them in with ripped tiles.

“So what did you do all month?”

Some of it was spent working on things you’ll see through the rest of this year.

I also spent a lot of time trying to get better at using Blender. A background you may recognize from this site’s image generators is coming to life in 3D and I’m taking the chance to get used to doing real UV textures.

It takes a lot of time to find reference for just the toy packaging fronts when I do the 2D version, and it’s much more trying to map out 3D versions, but I don’t have the words to describe how cool it is see that in motion. There’s an unlisted test video on my YouTube account if you want to see it in motion, but I’ll have a better example in a video you’ll see next month (maybe even before the anniversary update) and you’ll probably see it again this September. The obvious problem is that makes me want to get back to an earlier background I wanted to remake in 3D.

So here’s the thing. I made a quick Marvel vs. Capcom video to celebrate the news of the upcoming collection and posted it to Twitter and Instagram. I was going to upload a slightly better version to YouTube but didn’t want to risk it with the copyrighted song and used the MvC1 end credits when I posted it there. Chicken? Maybe. Still, here’s that version:

I had way more ideas for a longer version, so maybe I’ll save the R&B classic soundtrack for that instead.

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Mr. Q just put up another combo-heavy preview for the “Fight Forever” project!

You can tell Mr. Q is really having fun with these promo intros! I did the pencil and pixel work for the big select screen portraits, but I’d be hype for this game even if I didn’t, because you know how I feel about Final Fight!

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Speaking of Final Fight, I’ve seen pics going around of insane scalping of 52Toys’ Final Fight action figures, including someone trying to sell all 3 for over $300! Don’t feed the scalpers! Two places I’ve bought from before still have them for pre-order.
– BigBadToyStore has all three for $34 each and a shipping minimum of $4.
– AliExpress has them straight from 52Toys where they’re $35 each, $99 if all bought at the same time, and free shipping.

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Stay tuned for July 19, the birthday of this website!

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Final Fight, Marvel vs. Capcom, Street Fighter Alpha 3
4 Comments »