Video Games

Squawk.

~ J.Ho ~ 6 Comments

Sometimes, like a jerk, I waste hours and hours playing Angry Birds, a game meant to be a casual distraction, which has instead become an obsessive… obsession. Other times (still like a jerk) I post a super-late blog. Here is such a blog post now:

On Friday night I was too tired to draw, so I went to bed with the intention of playing a few levels of Angry Birds and then going to sleep. Fast forward to: me staying up until 9:30am, when I finally went to sleep (cursing at myself all the while). Woke up a few hours later and headed to the Long Beach Comic Expo, where I hung out with Dustin and Peter Nguyen (they are not related!), and drew this. Peter was kind enough to lend me a pen so that I could ink it. I drew another piece too, which I came home and inked, and will be posted this week in a timely manner, unlike today’s sketch.

I’ve been in sort of a rut lately, in addition to being busy with assorted other things. It was very eye opening to me that I was able to go hang with some friends, and even on very little sleep, bust out two drawings very quickly. I guess even weirdo recluses such as myself need to occasionally leave our secret lairs and get a change of scenery.

(But seriously, Angry Birds is really fun.)

Brother Vs. Brother

~ J.Ho

OKAY. Late, but here it is. Mega Man versus his brother Proto Man:

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I drew this on my iPad. It’s an improvement over my last two iPad sketches, but I’m obviously still getting the hang of it.

Powering Up.

~ J.Ho

I’m powering up right now, which is my shifty and dishonest way of saying that today’s post is merely a preview of a real post. Started an iPad sketch that got a little too ambitious to complete with time in short supply, so here’s just a portion of it:

The entire complete sketch should come next week! Sorry I’m such a lazy slacker these days!

Pokeballs To The Wall

~ J.Ho

Been a looong week (note extra O’s), so I’m about to give myself a little break and get started on my copy of Pokemon White. Before I go, here’s a little something I drew in Sketchbook Pro on my new iPad 2, with a capacitive stylus from Boxwave:

This is rather primitive, but it was fun to draw. I will be posting the progress of art that I produce on my iPad over the next few weeks and months, and I might even write up a super boring post detailing my thoughts on the device. But for now.. TEPIG, I CHOOSE YOU!

Have a good weekend, and please donate to Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief in any way that you can. Here are a few ways:
– Text REDCROSS to 90999 to Give $10
– Dustin Nguyen art auction
– FansProject Blessser

Robot Chicken (not the one you’re thinking of)

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

Today’s post features Scratch from The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s the cohort (and brother) of Grounder, who I posted a drawing of last week:

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As I did with Grounder, I interpreted Scratch with more of a Super Robot feel. This time I was specifically going for a look that resembled the animal-themed Mavericks from Megaman X. I think the final result is a little more tough-looking, while (hopefully) maintaining the cartoony fun of the original.

More Sonic fun coming over the next couple of weeks… but not next week… in case you were wondering.

._.

The only Dave Coulier reference I will ever make: Cut! It! Out!

~ J.Ho

I have a cool Cutman trading figure sitting on top of my scanner, so I was inspired to do my own take on him:

I was just sort of working out how I would interpret the character, and randomly decided to take it a step further, and render him with markers and colored pencils. This was fun and quick to do, and as always, it feels nice to bust out some traditional media rather than the same old Photoshop stuff I’m used to. Plus, I feel like being on graph paper inherently improves a drawing of a robot.

By the way–some time last year I finished using up the cache of scratch paper that I mentioned in this post. However, I have since found another sizable cache of old college papers and homework… so today’s piece is drawn on the backside of a piece of graph paper containing my Chinese vocabulary words. Zhen de!

(That means “Really!“)

Bruce Lite

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

It’s the Street Fighter franchise’s ersatz stand-in for Bruce Lee, Fei Long:

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I’m continuing my attempts to pepper in some more actiony pieces in my series of Street Fighter drawings. I was pretty pleased with this when I came up with it… but as often happens, I’m not sure how I feel about it after the fact. Hmmm…

MMO Tuesdays (Part 4 of 4)

~ J.Ho

Sorry for the interruption in the series. From City of Heroes, here’s the Statesman‘s archenemy, Lord Recluse (named for the venomous brown recluse spider):

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I took a few liberties with the costume design on this one, but I think it worked out. Recluse’s logo is normally only seen on his forehead, while a generic spider emblem is emblazoned on his breastplate. I think Recluse actually has a pretty cool looking logo, so I put that on his breastplate instead, and left his forehead blank.

C’mon, Recluse! Take a hint from Cobra Commander–if you’ve got a good logo, flaunt it!

MMO Tuesdays (Part 3 of 4)

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

As promised, here’s an MMO villain–Doctor Destroyer from Champions Online:

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I have no idea why the good Doctor’s character design so closely resembles that of Doctor Fate. You’ll have to take that up with the creators of Champions. I also have no idea why my drawing turned out so meh and stiff. That is strictly my fault. I think the colors turned out decently though. Gold is shiny.

._.

OH HEY–don’t forget to go to your local comic book store tomorrow and pick up the new JLA 80-page giant, which includes stories written by my pals Josh and Derek! Click on the pic below for details… DO EET!

Way Past Random

~ J.Ho

While I was sketching over the weekend, I had the Sonic Underground DVDs playing in he background (yes, my life is ridiculous). An episode came up with a cool-looking robotic hair-dresser named Do-Bot, so I decided to make a quick sketch of her. The sketch turned out okay, so I quickly colored her with some color pencils. And here she is:

I adjusted the scan so that the colors match the physical piece and added type–other than those small changes, I’m giving this one to you warts and all. Typically I’m overly-focused on over-producing slick artwork, but every now and then I get some artsy notion that it’s cool and “raw” to show off the gritty details of reality, like the gibberish on the scratch paper that I drew on.

Lately I’ve been feeling the need for a more tactile sensation while producing my sketches, so maybe we’ll see some more quick and dirty traditional media in the near future? There’s no way to know for sure… I’m a wild card these days.

Not So Secret

~ J.Ho

He’s the least secret of all secret characters, but he’s still bad-ass. From the Street Fighter franchise, Akuma!

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Akuma’s greying temples are seen in some of the offical art from Street Fighter III, but generally are not standard. I decided to include them, because I like the idea of this being the most ‘current’ version of Akuma, relative to his imaginary age. I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore. Bedtime!

Brought to you by the letter Q…

~ J.Ho

My love of obscure characters is no secret. In fact, I hardly ever shut up about it. From Street Fighter III, here’s the mysterious Q:

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Q doesn’t exactly fit in with the assorted commandoes, kickboxers, and karatekas of the Street Fighter universe. Judging by his name and face mask, he appears to be based on Shotaro Ishinomori‘s character Robot Detective K. However, he also bears a strong resemblence to Mitsuteru Yokoyama‘s character Iron Mask (from Babel II), and Osamu Tezuka‘s character Pero (from Astroboy and Metropolis).

Incidentally, all three of the mangaka that I just mentioned were contemporaries. Ishinomori was Tezuka’s assistant at one point (this is well documented), and I’ve read the same thing about Yokoyama (but I couldn’t find a reliable source on that). If you’re a fan of manga, anime, tokusatsu, or even Japanese-made video games, I highly recommend that you check out the works (and derivations there of) of Tezuka, Ishinomori, and Yokoyama. Their influence on is tremendous, and continues to this day.

Think of him as "Malibu Ryu"

~ J.Ho

The Street Fighter fan art deluge continues–in sharp contrast to the subdued Ryu, here’s Ken:

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This turned out better than Ryu did, but the forced perspective was still unconsciously blunted by my inner desire for boredom.

Red Hot

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

If my sketch of Ryu represents the Street Fighter franchise in general, today’s sketch represents the most recent installment. Fresh from her debut in Street Fighter IV, here’s Crimson Viper:

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When I first saw the screenshots of this character, I wasn’t that impressed. Her braid seemed a bit too reminiscent of Cammy, while her outfit seemed more appropriate to Street Fighter’s rivals over at the King of Fighters series (not that I have anything against King of Fighters, it just felt like an odd fit). Well, a few rounds of unleahing her bad-ass flaming split-kick (quarter circle back + kick, executable in mid-air) changed all that. Now I’m totally won over by her extravagant pompadour, her Morpheus-esque nose-pinching sunglasses, and yes, her exquisite wardrobe.

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance

~ J.Ho

A few weekends ago, I had a chance to play Street Fighter IV at a friend’s house. Had I been wearing socks while playing, those socks would in fact have been knocked off.

I’m a big fan of Capcom in general, and of their fighting games specifically–however, playing Street Fighter IV really pushed those characters and that franchise to the forefront of my thoughts. I find myself humming the music constantly. My mind has been desperately trying to create scenarios where I can justify buying the game itself, a console, a new television, and two tournament quality arcade sticks. Of course this is all going on while I draw fan art until the sun rises. Here’s Ryu, perhaps the single best-known of the Street Fighter cast:

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I’m going to be honest with you… this one didn’t turn out terribly well. The perspective was supposed to be much more forced and dramatic, but I have this problem where apparently my brain strives desperately for mediocrity, and while drawing, I unconsciously make things moderate and boring instead of extreme and dynamic. Regardless, it’s nice to draw a character like Ryu every now and then–he’s very recognizable in spite of being so visually plain. Those factors make me feel comfortable drawing him from a rare rear view, because I don’t feel like we’re missing any interesting costume details from this angle, and I’m also confident that he’ll still be indentifiable. I thought that showing Ryu’s back turned helped emphasize his aloof demeanor. Likewise, I tried creating poses-reflecting-disposition in the other Street Fighter pieces I drew… which will be flooding this blog shortly. Stay tuned!