I’m done with commission work for a while, so I’m back with a few real updates!
The ToyBoss section was updated with more new photos and up-to-date roster photos. One is a quick shot I took yesterday of my still-carded Captain Commando figures by 52Toys, now that I just got my Ninja Commando from AliBaba. Still waiting on my Baby Commando pre-order at HLJ, so I think I’ll hold out on opening them until I get the whole crew. The three figures I have look great and I haven’t even uncarded them yet, and I’m definitely keeping the cards for the artwork once I open them all. Speaking of complete crews, I managed to get the other three Target-exclusive “Pizza Club” Ninja Turtle figures by NECA. This is the first set of Turtles I gotten since the original Playmates figures from the 80s. I was going to (and still may) get all the Loyal Subjects BST AXN Turtles (I only have Raph for now), but I saw these announced months ago and plotted to get them. The BST AXN Turtles are still good, but I think the NECA Turtles themselves scale better when next to other toylines.
Speaking of toy line crossovers, I also added a new “Scale Wars” section with a few photos of figures from different lines standing next to each other to show how they scale. Some of these may help if you’re thinking of mixing and matching toylines or trying to figure out sizes for cross-line toy fodder.
With X-Men hype at a fever pitch again after the 10-episode run of X-Men ’97, there will be some new mutant-related sprites hitting the site next week!
I’ve spent most of the month working on pixel commissions (more on one of those in a bit) and working on things for two future Sprite Showcase videos. Iron Man will be the next Superhero Sprite Showcase do-over, and I’m redoing nearly everything because the original was done before I had a working version of Anime Studio/Moho again. The original version was done with a few clips in Blender, including a low-poly 3D Hall of Armors, and a bunch of complicated layer compositions in Magix Vegas. I’ve finished enough to show it now, including a new logo sequence and added pixel cover 3-shots, but I think it needs more.
The other Superhero Showcase is a team showcase is something I teased in an earlier video and it’ll share parts of earlier episodes. I’m sure you can probably guess which team that’ll be with no other hints.
There will probably be a BIG ToyBoss section update in May once I’m done with the commissions. I’ve managed to get Captain Commando and Mummy Commando of the 52TOYS line of Captain Commando figures, thanks to HobbyLink Japan, and I’ve got Baby Commando on pre-order. I also lucked up got a NECA ‘toon-style turtle with the Target-exclusive “Pizza Club” Leonardo. Great figure, and it’s good to have one of the 4 TMNT in NECA style after getting Usagi Yojimbo and comic-style Slash. Will I be able to get the other three turtles? Tune in and find out. I took a quick size comparison pic to show Leo’s height compared to a Jada Toys Street Fighters, Hasbro’s Marvel Legends, and a BST AXN Turtle by Loyal Subjects.
One of the commissions I drew recently was for a wild video guide by Avlyrr on hoe to play Hulk in Capcom’s Marvel Super Heroes fighting game. This is easily some of the most fun I’ve had watching a fighting game guide, and you’ll get some good laughs from this while learning what the good doctor (remember: this was the Peter David-written Smart Hulk era) can do in that game.
Big thanks to Avlyrr for being so great to work with for that commission!
Arcade Quartermaster just put up the new arcade game shrines for May: Master’s Fury by Unico and Air Bike Cop by Sega! (sorry that was the earlier update. May’s games are Bally Midway’s smash-hit driving combat game Spy Hunter and the gory Kaneko/Taito side-scrolling slasher Kabuki-Z!
Time for me to get back to work on the current commission. I’ll be back in May!
Street Fighter Alpha/Zero 3 portraits: Andore/Hugo (Final Fight/SF), Captain Commando, Harley Quinn (DC Comics), Spider-Man (Marvel), Black Widow (Marvel Comics)
Four of these were requests that I already wanted to make, but for various reasons (I had a Hugo/Andore sketched years ago, but didn’t like it) didn’t get done until now. Harley Quinn is just one I just had an itch to make.
Seeing my custom portraits in fake screenshots is one thing, but did you ever wonder how they’d look in the game? Using a new rendering technique, I made a short video using some of the older portraits I made from scratch:
What’s that rendering technique? I’ll tell you at the end of this post.
GFX Generator: The engine itself got some minor fixes, including a fix to some reflection effects. Also
– a “ScrollTech pattern background (added by request) added to the main generator
– The new portraits were added to the GFX Generators, mainly the SFA3 generator
The Beat ‘Em Up genre is really proving its naysayers wrong this year. As someone running a fan site in honor of those games for almost 20 years, I thought this would be the perfect time to gloat celebrate this new wave of appreciate of digital side-scrolling brawlers. This site has seen beat ’em up-themed updates over the years, but I think I need to do more to rep the genre, so expect to see more updates like this in the future. Today’s newness is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of Data East’s Bad Dudes, but you’ll find a 90’s brawler in her newest outfit, a character from a new beat ’em up, some superheroes, and some characters from Capcom’s Beat ‘Em Up Bundle!
Custom Sprite gallery updates:
– Bad Dudes: Blade and Striker (fight stance), Dragonninja, Mini, Kunoichi (finally got a good standing sprite!)
– Captain Commando (new separate gallery): Ninja Commando and Brenda & Carol
– Other Games (independent): Nikki Rage from Raging Justice
– Streets of Rage: Blaze Fielding (Streets of Rage 4)
– Marvel Comics: Spider-Man and Namor (both scratch-made and in their Spider-Man: the Video Game fight stances)
Reminder that the new Horror print is now in the shop!
Kickstarter alert: Bushinden: a combat platformer with beautiful pixel art!
Arcade Quartermaster just added three new shrines: Taito’s PU-LI-RU-LA, Data East’s WIZARD FIRE, and Athena’s CASTLE OF DRAGON!
