Today this site celebrates 22 years of platformer appreciation, beat ’em up boosting, pixel art positivity and more!

Custom Sprites:
Adventure Island: Master Higgins
Battle Circuit: Pink Ostrich
Mega Man: Fire Man
Karate Champ: Judge
Street Fighter: Cammy – Super Street Fighter II fight stance
Marvel: six of the suit-wearing thugs from Capcom’s Punisher arcade game
Illmosis Network: Upski Daisy (Beans vs. Cornbread)
Kirby: King Dedede

Sprites:
the Punisher: added Jigsaw and Hawke. Just checked the file properties and it looks like I had some of those sprites ready in 2009 and forgot to add them to the gallery.

As usual, all these new things have been added to the main Image Generator, where you can make (and right-click save) your own images like the one at the top of this news post!

ToyBoss: photos of the amazing Storm Collectables Tyris Flare have been added. I’m still in a bit of shock that official Golden Axe figures are even being made, but even more shocked that I have Tyris. If the Gilius Thunderhead is still available when I get my money back up again, I’ll get him, too. I bought mine at BigBadToyStore, but Entertainment Earth has them, too.

BTW: just in case you haven’t heard, Jada Toys recently teased new lines of Street Fighter and classic Mega Man action figures, and samples will be shown at San Diego Comic Con. No news about the scale of these figures yet, but I’m hoping they’ll be in 1:12 scale to fit in with Marvel Legends and G.I.JOE Classified. Funko made a nice Mega Man and fully on-model and poseable Dr. Wily a few years ago and I hope the new figures fit that same scale, too.

This update has new and updated Capcom sprites, some fixes and additions to earlier updates, and a new video!


Mega Man – Roll (Classic)
Street Fighter – Chun-Li (in her brand-new Street Fighter 6 outfit), Street Fighter 2010’s Kevin Straker
Final Fight – Mike Haggar Final Fight 2
G.I.JOE – updated Cover-Girl, Doc, Quick Kick (made taller). Also added some section links at the top of the gallery so you can get to the sections more quickly.

Mini-Logos:
Capcom: Street Fighter 2010
DC Comics: Wonder Twins

As usual, all these new things have been added to the main Image Generator, where you can make (and right-click save) your own images like the one at the top of this news post!

I also made a video that recaps what I’ve posted and made during the first half of 2022. This includes some things I haven’t shown until now, including animations and video project previews (though I’m still holding back a bit here). This just might turn out to be a yearly thing, so I gave it the name of HalfTime.

BTW: the video uses the SMB regular reconstructed font by TheWolfBunny. It’s mad solid and has a lot of characters other pixel art-based fonts lack. Here’s where you can get it for yourself:
https://fontstruct.com/fontstructors/1258630/thewolfbunny
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10bCAxc4-PxVnD5lqDZFi7POS8YNhQpI1/view


Those G.I. Joe sprite updates and that G.I.JOE HQ clip you saw in the HalfTime video’s “lab” are prep work for the “Yo Joe June” update later this month, which will include a few more G.I. JOE sprites! Currently working on more replacements of the old Capcom sprite edits and more “Original 13” (the original 13 members of the G.I.JOE line-up). Stay tuned!


There’s currently a Kickstarter campaign for a Ninja Baseball Spirits comic book! Yes, the Ninja Baseball Bat Man beat ’em up legend is fighting get it’s due right now, but the campaign still needs help to reach its goal. The comic has an all-star line-up of people who appreciate beat ’em ups, including Drew Maniscalco (the original creator of Ninja Baseball Bat Man), writer Dave Cook (“Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat ‘Em Ups”), and artist Steve Gregson (BPM: Beatdowns Per Minute). The comic will be available in digital and physical forms and there’s a wide array of extras for higher tiers, some including the beat ’em up-based BPM comic as a bonus. There are sample pages and artwork on the Kickstarter page, so check it out and give ’em a pledge if you’re interested (yes, I’ve got my pledge in already)!

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!

18 years ago, I started this site with at the public library with Tripod’s free site builder, screenshots from the PC version of Sega’s Smash Pack (made on a friend’s computer, didn’t even have my own PC yet), and a bunch of tips and tricks I’d scrawled in a notebook. Seemed like it’d be a fun thing to do on the internet. Multiple hosting moves and weird ideas later.

The theme of today’s update is… every theme, including the lack of a theme. Characters from games, a few from comics, some 1989 icons (to rep the Revenge of 1989), an obvious crossover face-off (outside of Crossup Beatdown), a horror villain (before October’s DangerTerrorHorrorThon), an eighties cartoon character (before the usual Toy and Cartoon update near Christmas), a new original character for the site and the return of a character born in the long defunct Minus World section. It’s like a Whitman’s chocolate assortment of this site’s usual habits, so here’s the map that lets you avoid that one weird cream candy that makes you scrunch up in the face.

Custom Sprite additions
Bomberman: all-new Bomberman action pose
Final Fight: Cody (Street Fighter V stance)
Megaman: Bombman
Shinobi series: Joe Musashi (Revenge of Shinobi title screen)
Sonic the Hedgehog: Knuckles the Echidna (classic)
Konami: Cyber Ninja (Metal Gear Solid)
Toaplan: the Snow Bros. Nick & Tom
DC Comics: Harley Quinn
Marvel Comics: Beast and Hawkeye
Toys and ‘Toons: Cheetara of the Thundercats (1980s)
Horror: Pamela Voorhees new (and better) sprite
Illmosis/ScrollBoss: Endless Duck and Maddie Tenay (ScrollBoss mascot from the upcoming movie section)

All new sprites have been added to the main GFX Generator where you can make your own pics and fake screenshots! Other things added to the generators today:
– characters added: KoF Sports team added, Mojo (Marvel)
– characters updated: Mai Shiranui

While I’m at it, all prints on the site are on sale until the end of the month!


all 8 x 10/ 8.5 x 11 on the site are now $4!


11×17 inch prints are $8!

That’s the main part of the update. Some small preview additions to the Vs. Horror pt. 2 pixel print, an unfinished promo video and a thank you message are behind the cut. So, if you don’t read that, I’ll put an extra “Thank you” here to let you know that you’re appreciated!
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As posted earlier this week on the main Illmosis site, I finally drew new inked artwork of classic-era Mega Man!


That new Mega Man pic has just been added to the prints area of the shop page!


The Youngstown Comic Con takes place at Youngstown, Ohio’s Covelli Center next weekend, July 7th and 8th! In case you’ve missed the earlier site posts here, I’ll be in Artist Alley again, but, sadly, only on Sunday the 8th.

Don’t worry, it’s not just about comic books, as a lot of the other artists and vendors will have video game merch, and there’s always tons of video game cosplay going on. In fact, some of my earnings last year didn’t make it out of the building because I bought a loose copy of Gauntlet IV for the Genesis!

I’ll have a lot of the prints you see on the site along with the mini pixel art prints that I only have at conventions:

They’re only $1 each and… hmmm… a few seem to have a some sprites and backgrounds that aren’t on the site yet. Yes, a few of ’em find their way into future site updates.


Arcade Quartermaster just dropped its July update with a trio of beat ’em up shrines: Legionnaire, P.O.W. and, a personal favorite of mine, Karate Blazers!


That’s all for now. See you in July!

First of all, just in case you didn’t come in through the front door, check out the new and improved index page. That new index pic is YEARS in the making, because I wanted the new version to have 0% sprite edits. That’s all scratch-made, including a sprite done for the new group shot and can’t be found in the galleries yet. I’ll let you find him for yourself. That external link icon set is new, too. Like a lot of the things in this update, it’s long overdue, so let’s get to the rest of it.

Info Center: After years of neglect, the Game Index, Company Index, S-Files/Character profiles and Definition/Vernacula-X sections have been recoded and the main page itself has a new pic with site character Vonetta (a.k.a. Vernacula). She’s in charge of the Info Center and likes the place to be quiet, so keep the noise down while you’re in there.. The pages mostly look the same, but there were a lot of little fixes and improvements to a lot of entries, and the new system I’m using for all of them makes it easy to make changes in the future. Unfortunately, since I’ve been working on this here-and-there since mid-2017, I don’t remember all the brand new pages, so this is a partial list:
– Definitions: Doppelgänger, fighting game, fixed screen, frankensprite, head swap, tile
– S-Files: Billy Lee, Jimmy Lee

Custom Sprites: there are now separate galleries for Alex Kidd, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Ninja Gaiden, the Zelda series
Ghosts ‘n Goblins: a new scratch-made Arthur sprite.
Mega Man: a new scratch-made MvC1-style Mega Man sprite.
Data East: Santos (Trio the Punch)
Konami: Solid Snake (MGS)
Sega: Mary (Quartet)
Marvel: Black Cat (Spider-Man arcade fighting stance)
Illmosis: a new sprite of Vonetta (a.k.a. Vernacula)

Sprites: lots of behind-the-scenes work was done on nearly all the galleries, mostly switching to the new image display format. There are a few new things, though.
Golden Axe: the Duel: all arcade big portraits are now there (and separate) and an new .GIF of the final boss.
P.O.W.: new gallery with sprites of the player characters.

Mini-logos:
Konami: Metal Gear Solid

GFX Generators: All of the new custom sprites and mini-logo have been added to the main generator, where The Mego WGSH set-up gets a better set of Konami face circles.

**wipes brow** That’s all for now. Please let me know if you run into any errors or broken parts of the site, because this update changed at least 40% of the site!

The Mega Man NES Boss Intro and Boss select screens now work in the new GFX Generator engine, and the Fakeshot (8-bit) generator has been update to use the v.2 versions, including the Shops from the separate River City Ransom Shop generator that was upgraded last week. New Mega Man-stype edits: Hawkwoman/Hawkgirl (DC Comics), Dr. Octopus (Marvel Comics), Doctor Emmitt Brown (Back to the Future) and Doctor Detroit.


The River City Ransom Shop generator was updated, too! Two new shops have been added: Good Burger, Daddy Green’s Pizza. New sprites include Ed (Good Burger), Lester Oakes (dissatisfied Good Burger customer), Daddy Green (the Last Dragon), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (they heard a new pizza place was available!), Paul (River City Ransom: Underground), Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers, Batsu and Hinata (Rival Schools).

Those new sprites have been added to the Mega Man NES and River City Ransom custom sprite galleries

That’s not all! X-Men: CotA portraits of Jubilee and Gambit (made from Jim Lee art) have been added to the X-Men:CotA and main image generators!

Also: the part of the GFX Generator where you enter text now has a border for each entry and description so you’ll know exactly what’s what. Well, in the generator, not life itself.

Also: I’ve got FOUR commission slots open! Check out the Illmosis.net commissions page for all the details on how you can get me to make a sprite or two for you!

To everyone who has checked out the site back in the days of Vs. Mode fights and Minus World madness (the site section, not the completely different website), those who just visited for the first time today and every party person who falls somewhere in between, thank you for stopping by and making these sixteen pixel-packed years fly by. Get ready for multiple days of anniversary updates, starting with a seven-sprite kickoff!


Custom Sprites:
Capcom: Protoman (with variant)
Konami: Sledge (Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2)
– – Castlevania: Trevor Belmont, Sypha (SotN Cape up variant of the earlier sprite)
IREM: Straw from Ninja Baseball Bat Man
Taito: Sayo-chan (a.k.a. Pocky) from Kiki Kai Kai, Zeke from Zoo Keeper (both in-game and cabinet art styles)
Sega: Sonic the Hedgehog… decided to start running right as I clicked on the GFX Generator screenshot maker. See, that’s just rude. Maybe someone told him Protoman was the coolest person in the pic or perhaps he was scared off by the Zoo Keeper. Don’t worry, this isn’t the only update this week, so let’s see if I can get him to slow down for another sprite before the anniversary updates are done.

All sprites were added to the aforementioned GFX Generators (the old GroupShot and Vs generators).

Game fans all over the internet are celebrating the #Happy30thNES event (thanks to PlatinumFungi) on their websites and on Twitter. Made to honor the 30th Anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System, the event is a chance for us to show and tell why we love that gray box of 8-bit magic. I’ve done my part by making 30 new NES-like sprites based on a few of my favorite NES games while using colors from the original sprites:

You can find the separate sprites (and an extra sprite that didn’t make the cut) in the new NES-like 32 gallery.

No offense to my Atari 2600 and ColecoVision, but the NES was the first system I owned that could play the kinds of games that inspired me to make this site. Platformers, beat ’em ups, run ‘n guns and similar genres really started to come into their own at that time and the Nintendo Entertainment System was one of the best ways to play those games at home. It’s the beginning of what I consider to be the sweet spot of action games becoming adventures while still being unashamed of being games. That’s probably why we still see new games using the look and feel of those NES classics and it’s definitely a big part of why many of us are celebrating its 30th anniversary today.

Help spread the word about the event if you can and feel free to talk about your own Nintendo favorites in the comments section!

Articles: I’ve had this page about Rob Strangman’s Memoirs of a Virtual Caveman book for a long time, but didn’t finish it until now. It’s made in the old, abandoned game review format because of a few jokes in the info section that I thought were funny at the time (sigh). As it says on the page, I’m probably a bit biased because I drew the cover, but I really dug that book and the voice it gives to various parts of the video game community. The article is here and I hope you give Rob’s book a chance!


Arcade Quartermaster’s latest batch of game shrines is monster-themed and features Night Slashers (one of my favorites), Kiki KaiKai (Taito’s original Pocky and Rocky game), Laser Ghost and Nightmare in the Dark.


You know, we’ve had a lot of fun here today, but it’s time to get serious. Dead serious.

Horror returns to ScrollBoss next week. Be there* and be scared.

(by “there” I mean “here.” Just making that clear.)

I’ve been a big fan of the Flash since I was only a few pixels tall, so I’m having my own little celebration of the character’s 75th anniversary on both Illmosis and ScrollBoss. The Illmosis site has the new picture I’ve drawn of the Flash and this place is getting a bunch of sprites and a new animation. Everything in the post will be Flash-related either by name or by nature. Let’s hit the ground running with the newness!

Custom Sprites:
DC Comics: Flash Jay Garrick (two poses), Barry Allen (a new scratch-made run pose and an old running sprite made from Cyclops), the Reverse-Flash
Movies: Flash Gordon (1980s) and Grandmaster Flash (in Wild Style outfit)
Capcom: Flashman
Sega: Flashgal (all new sprites, three weapons)

Mini-logos:
– DC Comics: Flash (Flash Comics), Reverse-Flash
– movies: Flash Gordon (1980)

GFX Generators: All new items, logos and characters added to the GroupShot and VsMaker generators.

Now for the special part. This animation is a rough version of something I’ve made for a long-running (groan) idea, but it’s not a Flash sprite set. Everything in it was made from scratch, including that test background:


You’ll get more glimpses of it later this year.