– Magic Sword: new scratch-made sprite of Alan/the Brave One (player one)
– Tomb Raider: new v.1 Lara Croft sprite
– Shantae:new Shantae sprite
– Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy Rose (classic)
– Illmosis: new Nutroll taunt sprite and improved fight stance sprite and the first Beans vs. Cornbread character sprite: Al1mighty Grandmaster Wizard!
– Marvel Comics: the Vision (arms folded, white rebooted design)
– DC Comics: Fire/Green Flame sprite
Also, a quick little video showing of the new sprites (including a few with eye blink animations), a display of all the X-Men sprites I’ve done so far, and a little bit more of something I’ve been posting teasers of since last year.
Custom Sprites: Finally, every character in the Marvel and DC gallery that only had a sprite edit based on a Capcom fighting game sprite now has a sprite I made from scratch. I’ve been working toward this goal on the side for a while, but I just decided to clear them all out before 2021 ended. Some of these new sprites are exact or close replacements for the old poses, but not all of them. The edits for those characters who weren’t originally in the games will be removed from the Image Generators.
– Megaman: Megaman classic – redid the Rockman 1 title screen pose from scratch, Elecman (NES stance), Dr. Wily, and (by popular demand) Yellow Devil
– Run Saber (new separate gallery): Allen and Sheena, new scratch-made idle sprites
– DC Comics: Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Red Tornado, Green Lanterns Guy Gardner, Arisia, Katma Tui, Kilowog, and a new Justice League group sprite with the Brave and the Bold #28 line-up.
– Marvel Comics: Archangel, Havok, Professor X, Psylocke, Rogue, X-23, Doctor Octopus, the Lizard, and new group sprites of the Avengers (issue #1) and the X-Men (Konami beat ’em up playable roster)
– Masters of the Universe: new Skeletor sprite (with Havok Staff)
– G.I.JOE: all-new scratch-made Quick Kick
Mini-Logos:
– Atlus: Run Saber
– Marvel Comics: Archangel, Professor X
– DC Comics: Blue Beetle, Red Tornado
ToyBoss: Added a page for my first custom figure in FIFTEEN YEARS and first custom Marvel Legend has been added to the page, the Red Skull in his business suit (as seen in Data East’s Captain America and the Avengers)!
All sprites (except for the group sprites) have been added to the image generators, along with:
– the Comic Book arcade background being added to the main generator (Group, Vs., MvC Ending, Comic 88×136, Boxes).
Last, but definitely not least, there’s a Wrap-Up video on the ScrollBoss YouTube channel! The vid is a mix of clips from my 2021 videos (the Superhero Showcade with Iron Man and Batman, Beat ‘Em Up Showcade 2021, DangerTerrorHorrorThon, and more), a few updated clips (The Gotham villain scroll no longer has Bane in it), and some all-new clips, including some with the sprites in today’s update:
It’s been a tiring year (online and off), so I’m going to get some rest for a while. Thank you for coming through, I hope you have a great remainder of 2021, and I’ll see you on the other side of New Year’s Eve!
Custom Sprites:
– Metroid: Samus Aran (Metroid Dread) and Kraid (Super Metroid design, NES-ish height) added
– Marvel Comics: Living Laser scratch-made sprite added
Extra notes:
1.) I added the Comic Books hub to the bottom of any comic book-related pages, just to make it easier.
2.) Living Laser replaces the last of my old Marvel Villain sprite edits made from Capcom sprites. I cleared the DC Comics villains last year, so now it’s down to getting scratch-made sprites to replace the last of the heroes, with six for Marvel and six for DC. I’ve got line art drawn for a few of them, so finishing them up will be one of my 2022 side-missions.
Mini-logos: Grim Reaper (who got a new sprite a few weeks ago) and Living Laser get new mini-logos in the Marvel gallery
Anyway, all new sprites and mini-logos were also added to the main image generator, where I made the image at the top of this post
I’m currently doing some paid pixel art work right now (commissions aren’t open again, this was set-up long in advance), so the things here will be slow for a bit.
With social media still going downhill and the likelihood that Web 3.0 will be built to shut out more people than it’ll let in (and even more likely to exploit people as much as possible), I find myself being more grateful to see the independent sites updating.
Dire has been working up a storm over at both the West Mansion Splatterhouse shrine and the OPFCG blog. It’s more than adding things to the sites (and there’s a lot of newness in West Mansion), but talking about things like his revived Turbografx-16 collection, finding his Metal Slug fan site in the Internet Archive, and more.
Due to outside forces last week, I didn’t have the time to finished all the stuff I’d planned (this happens A LOT), and I’m not in the mood to leave these things unfinished, so…
mini-logos: I dipped back and made mini-logos for characters who didn’t get them during the weekend, including…
– DC Comics: Croc (Killer Croc’s logo for the ’85 Who’s Who)
– McFarlane: Violator
– Movies: Tiffany (Child’s Play)
– Music: Geto Boys
– Television: Movie Macabre (Elvira’s original TV show logo)
Custom Sprites: Double Dragon: Abobo and some variations of that sprite were redone, along with Abobo getting a sub-gallery.
Marvel Comics: Avalanche, Batroc, and the Controller.
All these sprites have been added to the main image generator (Avalanche and Controller are in the Marvel Villains character slot).
I took the 2017 sprite, increased the size by 400%, put it in Clip Studio, traced it with a 5px. brush, and exported it at 25%. Clean-up work seems to take a while, but this process is still an experiment for me. I originally used the original NES-ish angle of the head, but decided to draw a forward-looking head alt head to use instead. BTW: this is why I still haven’t finished a spriting tutorial, because my process never stops changing.
A similar process was used to redo some linework I’d drawn and scanned of Avalanche and the Controller, along with remaking Batroc from scratch, and all of them are now in the Marvel gallery. Nearly all the Marvel villain Capcom-based sprite edits I had from the old days. Also made some headway on a Marvel video that I’ve wanted to make for over a decade:
Remember, the first Beat ‘Em Up Showcade video will strike this September, so stay tuned if you want to see more pixel art remakes based on Double Dragon, Final Fight, Streets of Rage, and more!
The first ever Superhero Sprite Showcade is up on ScrollBoss YouTube channel:
A huge thanks to AVPboy for letting me include that excellent CPS-2 sound remake of the Genesis/Mega Drive Batman’s first stage BGM! It sounds so good that I went back and sprited two thugs from that level that you saw in the first Batman clip.
The last two Superhero Sprite Showcases that people voted for last year are finally here in the same video, making it a Sprite Showcade, along with some bonus material at the end. I’m still locked out of my Anime Studio Pro 10 install, so the new clips were done with Blender, Magix Vegas, and combinations of both (like that quick panning shot with Iron Man, Hawkeye and Cap). The “pixel cover” format that made its debut in last month’s video are in this one, including tributes to some real comic covers. You’ll also see some sprites you haven’t seen before that aren’t in the sprite galleries or generators just yet.
Still trying to take a bit of a break and give my drawing/spriting hand some rest, but still putting time in the lab, too.
Custom Sprites – Marvel: Storm (scratch remake of her Capcom Children of the Atom idle pose) and Monica Rambeau (resprited the pose inspired by Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 by John Romita Sr. and Jr.)
Custom Sprites – DC: DC: Bronze Tiger
All new logos added to the GFX Generators, where you can make graphics and fake screenshots like the one at the top of this post
Been experimenting in the lab with more video stuff, too, including an old idea I had for comic cover style clips for the Superhero Sprite Showcases/Showcades. Those clips were done in right in Magix Vegas because I don’t have my Anime Studio Pro 10 issues fixed yet. Since it’s Black History Month, it’s all Black Superheroes, and I’ll eventually do a full vid of this in the future.
Sprite Rips:
– Name Graphics: Select/Vs. from Vampire Savior-Darkstalkers 3, also includes the dozens of custom names I made for this site’s image generators (and a few that are still unused) by cutting, pasting, and rearranging the preexisting letters. Most of the extras are horror-themed. It also includes a gradient pattern file to use as a layer or fill when you make your own custom name graphics.
GFX Generators: today’s new sprites have been added to the appropriate generators (mostly the main generator), along with…
– the main generator’s side panel now has more short cuts so you spend a bit less time scrolling. I’ll continue to work on this and add it to the other generators later.
In December 2020, ownership of the Anime Studio/MOHO (the animation program I’ve been using since 2015 to render most of my video clips) changed to Lost Marble, which will be a really good thing from what I’ve read. What isn’t good is how SmithMicro didn’t give any warning about how the software ownership verification on your computer would stop working if you didn’t update immediately… which I only found out after it happened to me because they sent no heads-up e-mail of any kind. That means all my work in AS is either temporarily halted or just completely dead and will have to be redone. So I went back to the lab with other tools.
The 3-D shots were done in Blender with techniques I was experimenting with before I got Anime Studio. The 2-D Hall of Armor shot was made in Magix Vegas, the video editor I usually use to edit, assemble and render full videos, with layers of PNG and GIF files. So I’ll be spending a lot of time in the lab getting these alternate techniques down so I can get the videos going again.
Also, I’m taking a break for a month or two. I’m still very tired, mentally and physically, from how the last half of 2020 went for me offline, so I probably need to get some actual rest. My plans for taking commissions are going to be on indefinite hold, because I think I’m too tired to do those effectively.
Future updates additions to the Toyboss section, like my new Golden Axe Skeletons by Storm Collectables (lucked up and caught the restock on Bluefin) and the Articulated Icons Ninjas (most are 50% off until the end of January!) I finally got after fiending for them for a while. I highly recommend those ninjas, especially because they’re built for martial arts poses and customization.
Even though I teased Comic Book Sprite Showcase earlier this year, the original name was the Superhero Sprite Showcase, and that’ll be the title in this short test video featuring Wolverine!
An improved version of the orange and brown Wolverine sprite in his Konami arcade game fighting stance pose has been added to his sprite gallery and the GFX Image Generators, along with the variations you saw in the video. Also, the stylish “Marvel 80 Years” Marvel Legends box was added to the “Marvel Legends” screenstyle in the generators.
It’ll be a while before the next episode, but I’ve got plans for more Superhero (and Comic Book) Showcases (and eventually Showcades) to be added to the ScrollBoss YouTube channel if people are interested, so let me know if you’d like to see more!
