King Bowser that is! AKA King Koopa!
It’s good to be the king
Video Games
The (Kart) Princess Diaries (Part 3 of 3)
To wrap up this brief series, here’s Rosalina, the most recent of the Princesses from the Mario-verse. The little floaty star-dude is her pal Luma.
click above for larger view
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really know anything about Rosalina, other than what I got from skimming her wiki. I haven’t actually played Super Mario Galaxy, but Rosalina is one of my drivers of choice for Mario Kart.
I don’t have anything planned for the immediate future, but I think you can expect to see more Nintendo characters from me. There’s a simple yet iconic quality to Nintendo’s pantheon that makes them a lot of fun to draw.
The (Kart) Princess Diaries (Part 2 of 3)
A quick aside before I get into the usual nonsense–please check out my previous post about Necessary Evil, if you haven’t already. It’s right here. Or you can scroll down.
Continuing from where I left off with the race track royalty of Mario Kart–here’s Daisy:
click above for larger view
I don’t have much to say about Daisy. So just enjoy me not rambling on. Starting now… period.
The (Kart) Princess Diaries (Part 1 of 3)
I was playing Mario Kart with Coheteboy the other day, and I did not do well. Shameful, really.
But at least it provides me a convenient segue into my next couple of posts–in the latest incarnation of Mario Kart, the Princess characters sport sleek-looking jumpsuits when they ride motorcycles. I thought the jumpsuits were really sharp, so I decided to draw the foxxy blue bloods of the Mario-verse. First up, naturally, is Peach:
click above for larger view
If I actually owned the game, or had some decent reference, I might have drawn her (or the other Princesses) on one of the cooler looking motorcycles. OH WELL!
Hard Looks
Who’s that Pokemon???
It’s Metapod!
I drew this ages ago (five years ago, in fact) for two kids at Comic-Con who were taking a sketchbook around and having artists draw random Pokemon. They sent me a scan of it, and here I am, a jillion years later, finally doing something with it.
A few years later I saw those kids again, but they weren’t kids–they were young men, in college, and they were in a band. I’m old!
The end.
Pretty Fly For A Shy Guy
Today I’ve got a Shy Guy for you, from the world of Super Mario Brothers. I’ve taken a few liberties, but overall this is a pretty straight-up interpretation.
I think I’ve mentioned before how much I love the mythology of video games, in spite of my ineptitude at actually playing video games. I’ve been playing a little Smash Brothers and Mario Kart recently, so the larger Mario-verse has been on my mind. Luckily, a site like Super Mario Wiki exists, so that I may satisfy my deep craving for obscure trivia about the Mario-verse.
The L-word stands for…
Battle Toad Tuesdays! (Part 3 of 3)
Concluding this particular series, here is Rash, the fun-loving wisecracker of the Battletoads:
click above for larger view
I tried to make my version of the ‘Toads a bit more “realistically” toad-like as far as their faces went, but I kept their bodies tall and lanky to retain the feel of the original designs. Color-wise, I stuck pretty close to the source material. Now how about some wallpapers? (The background elements in the wallpapers were snagged from some screenshots I found online)
click above for 1280 x 1024 (Fullscreen)
click above for 1920 x 1200 (Widescreen)
Battle Toad Tuesdays! (Part 2 of 3)
So, Battletoads. The cartoons and video games of the 90’s were rife with anthropomorphic action heroes with a fondness for surfer slang. These characters arose in an attempt to cash in on the Ninja Turtles of course, and of the various Ninja Turtle imitators, the Battletoads are possibly the only ones worth mentioning.
The Battletoads were the stars of a video game, which even today is notorious for its difficulty. And here’s the funny thing about me and video games: I am terrible at them. I like playing video games, and I love the mythology of video games, but I don’t have much time for them, and generally, I’m terrible at them. I’ve passed/fully unlocked maybe 5 video games in my life. So it goes without saying that I never even came close to beating Battletoads. And yet I just said it. Hunh.
click above for larger view
Charles actually suggested that I draw the Battletoads over a year ago. I followed that suggestion immediately… but didn’t ink and color these guys until two weeks ago. Yay for procrastination?
Tune in next week for the third of the Battletoad trio!
Battle Toad Tuesdays! (Part 1 of 3)
I’m feeling succinct, for once. Treasure it while you can! Here is Zitz, leader of the Battletoads:
click above for larger view
I’ll offer some more jibber jabber about the Battletoads in the next installment of this series. As if you asked.
Greetings New Visitors! (Also: An Addendum, In Which I Explain How I Unknowingly Plaigarized An Idea)
First of all, hello to any new readers dropping in, and a HUGE thanks to Kevin for plugging my Halo Kitty post on his widely known and beloved blog. As a result of Kevin’s post, my daily visitors jumped up, oh about 1268%. O_O
So, after the surge in page hits, I was looking at my blog’s stats, checking out how people found my blog. Several LiveJournal pages mentioned my Halo Kitty post too (presumably someone on LiveJournal saw Kevin’s blog, and things spread from there), but I also saw several hits referred from a comments thread on a Danish website discussing Halo. I’m always curious what the Danes are saying about me, so I ran some of the comments through a translator. One of the commentors linked my image saying “The rumours say that the sale hasn’t gone in Japan so well, and that MicroSoft therefore works on a new version to the Japanese market.” Very funny, yes? Well, the next person that replied said that Halo Kitty was old news, and gave a link–unfortunately the link was dead.
Well, this got me curious. Earlier in the year when I had drawn this image, I did a google image search for “Halo Kitty”, and came up with a few images of Spartan heads Photoshopped onto cats, and one image of a Halo Kitty head Photoshopped onto Master Chief–I figured my concept was different enough, so I ran with it (well, I ran slowly, since I took several months to get around to coloring it). That was then.
A few minutes ago, I googled “Halo Kitty” and came up with this image, virtually identical in design to my own image, but predating me by three years. THREE YEARS. As it turns out, there are several Halo Kitties that predate mine. The one I just linked (posted November 2004) appears to be the most well-known–two others predate that. One from April 2004 and one from October 2004.
So, I am unoriginal, and a horse’s ass, but unintentionally so. My apologies to the creator(s) of the original image(s). To anyone dropping in for the first time, I hope you’ll stick around–I still have pictures of platypi with three-section staffs (an original idea, as far as I can tell), badger-pits, and of course various obscure nerdy characters from He-Man.
EDIT: There are a million more, CLICK HERE
(This post will be linked in the original Halo Kitty post.)
SLAYER (Also, another rare mention of the day job!)
(Posting early so I can get moving on some other stuff…)
Today’s sketch has been drawn and scanned for several months. I finally slapped some colors in it to commemorate the release of Halo 3 earlier this week:
Halo Kitty’s battlefield pragmatism shows through in her army-green Meowjolnir Mark IV armor, but her favorite color is actually pink–that’s why her weapon of choice is the Needler with its razor-sharp crystalline pink ammunition.
So yeah, I’m far from an expert on Halo, but we play Halo 2 (Slayer or Team Slayer) at the day job sometimes (a lot). This week one of my co-workers brought in Halo 3 which we played a few rounds of. The controls are amazingly smooth, to the point that I felt like my mediocre playing ability was embiggened by the controls. In reference to my in-game squirrely-ness and how difficult it was to kill me, my co-worker said, “you’re like a monkey from hell.” That’s probably just true about me in general.
(EDIT: I am not the originator of the concept for Halo Kitty, please read THIS.)
Speaking of the day job–it somehow slipped by me that Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #13 was unleashed in comic book stores this past Wednesday. It features a seven-page story written by Comedian of Comedy Patton Oswalt, pencilled by yours truly, inked by the steady neuro-surgeon-like hands of Mike Rote, and colored by Hammers. The story is called They Draw and is a parody of the excellent cult classic They Live. Check it out in stores now, and if you’re in the Los Angeles area, there’s going to be a signing for the book on October 13th at Golden Apple:
click above for larger view
Real Life IM Transcript, Fake IM names… Subject: Transformers and Pokemon
It started out innocently enough…
[00:32] AUTOBOT-Elric: butthead
[00:32] AUTOBOT-Elric: ya there?
[00:33] green lantern wannabe: yeah i am
[00:33] AUTOBOT-Elric: i just saw a clip of transformers on david letterman
[00:34] green lantern wannabe: ok so how was the Tf clip?
[00:34] AUTOBOT-Elric: that **** was rad
[00:34] AUTOBOT-Elric: they’re giving away too much, which is a bad sign
[00:34] green lantern wannabe: hahahah sure i hear it looks good
[00:34] AUTOBOT-Elric: but
[00:34] green lantern wannabe: hahahah mayybbeee
[00:34] AUTOBOT-Elric: the clip is radddd
[00:34] green lantern wannabe: haha
[00:34] AUTOBOT-Elric: its megatrron cornering spike on a rooftop
[00:34] AUTOBOT-Elric: dude
[00:34] AUTOBOT-Elric: it looked great
[00:35] AUTOBOT-Elric: and its the first i’ve heard megs talk
[00:35] AUTOBOT-Elric: hugo weaving sounds nothing like himself
[00:35] AUTOBOT-Elric: i can not wait for this ****!
[00:36] AUTOBOT-Elric: seriously dude, this **** is no fair
[00:37] AUTOBOT-Elric: everyone has seen the movie but me
[00:37] AUTOBOT-Elric: WHY GODDDD
[00:37] AUTOBOT-Elric: ???
[00:37] green lantern wannabe: hahahahah
[00:37] green lantern wannabe: its cool man
[00:37] green lantern wannabe: no worries
[00:37] green lantern wannabe: you’ll get your turn
[00:37] AUTOBOT-Elric: I WANT IT NOWWWWW
[00:37] AUTOBOT-Elric: HUNGERRRRRRRR
[00:37] AUTOBOT-Elric: I WANT IT SO BADDDD I CAN TASTE IT
[00:37] AUTOBOT-Elric: IT DRIVES ME MAD TO SEE IT WASTED
[00:38] AUTOBOT-Elric: little quote from the og TF soundtrack there, niatch
Then some talk about my tragic dating life lead to…
[01:03] AUTOBOT-Elric: i think instead of dating i’m just gonna buy a DS and become a pokemon trainer
[01:03] AUTOBOT-Elric: sound good?
[01:03] AUTOBOT-Elric: quit everything else
[01:06] green lantern wannabe: dude
[01:06] green lantern wannabe: go to bed
[01:06] green lantern wannabe: haha
[01:07] AUTOBOT-Elric: you know what u need to do
[01:08] AUTOBOT-Elric: make a name for yourself
[01:08] green lantern wannabe: umm surreeee
[01:08] green lantern wannabe: ok
[01:08] AUTOBOT-Elric: and then go thru my favorites on DA
[01:08] AUTOBOT-Elric: and just pick people to hire
[01:08] AUTOBOT-Elric: and then tell me all about it
[01:08] AUTOBOT-Elric: you’ll have to txt me
[01:08] AUTOBOT-Elric: cuz i’ll be travelling the world, becoming the world’s greatest pokemon trainer
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: BOOM… BOOMBOOMBOOM-BOOM
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: I WANNA BEEEE THE VERY BEST
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: TO CATCH THEM IS MY TRUE TEST
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: TO TRAIN EM IS MY CAUSE
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: I’LL TRAVEL ‘CROSS THE LAND
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: SEARCHIN FAR AND WIDE
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: EACH POKEMON TO UNDERSTAND
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: THE POWERRRRRR THATSSSS INSIIIIDE
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: POKEMON!
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: GOTTA CATCH EM ALLLL
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: IT’S YOU AND ME
[01:09] AUTOBOT-Elric: YOU KNOW ITS OUR DESTINY
[01:10] AUTOBOT-Elric: YOU NEEED ME AND I NEEEED YOU
[01:10] AUTOBOT-Elric: POKEEEEEEMONNNNNNN
[01:10] green lantern wannabe: okkkk
[01:10] green lantern wannabe: sure you do that
[01:10] green lantern wannabe: yeahhhh
[01:10] AUTOBOT-Elric: dude
[01:10] AUTOBOT-Elric: YOU SAID ITS OK!
[01:10] AUTOBOT-Elric: *packs duffle bag and pokeballs*
[01:11] green lantern wannabe: dude.. you are making me tired
[01:12] AUTOBOT-Elric: dude
[01:12] AUTOBOT-Elric: you have to have stamina
[01:12] AUTOBOT-Elric: if you want to be the world’s best pokemon trainer
[01:12] AUTOBOT-Elric: …
[01:12] AUTOBOT-Elric: WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
[01:12] AUTOBOT-Elric: e_e
[01:14] AUTOBOT-Elric: eh comrade???
[01:14] AUTOBOT-Elric: eh?
[01:14] AUTOBOT-Elric: ;)
[01:15] green lantern wannabe: eh?
Later, I continue to be hilarious…
[01:29] AUTOBOT-Elric: ok cool, sounds like a plan
[01:29] AUTOBOT-Elric: i’m gonna get together some supplies and pick out a few pokeballs
[01:29] AUTOBOT-Elric: then i need to email professor oak
[01:29] AUTOBOT-Elric: then its off to bed
[01:29] AUTOBOT-Elric: and i start my journey as a pokemon trainer tommorrow!
[01:30] AUTOBOT-Elric: who should i pick first?
[01:30] AUTOBOT-Elric: i’m thinking bulbasaur
[01:30] AUTOBOT-Elric: dude… ?
[01:30] AUTOBOT-Elric: what do you think?
[01:30] AUTOBOT-Elric: you seem like a squirtle man yourself
[01:31] green lantern wannabe: hahaha
[01:31] green lantern wannabe: umm i dont know’
[01:31] green lantern wannabe: its been awhile since i played
[01:32] AUTOBOT-Elric: lol… i forgot, you actually are really good at it
[01:32] AUTOBOT-Elric: damn dude
[01:32] AUTOBOT-Elric: you and i need to both get DS’s
[01:32] AUTOBOT-Elric: and each get a diff version of the game
[01:32] AUTOBOT-Elric: we’ll be rivals!
[01:32] AUTOBOT-Elric: this is gonna be rad.
[01:33] green lantern wannabe: im retired
[01:33] AUTOBOT-Elric: dude
[01:34] AUTOBOT-Elric: i can see the heart of a pokemon trainer burning deep in you
[01:34] AUTOBOT-Elric: it never dies man
[01:34] green lantern wannabe: i hung it up for a bigger and more dangerous hunt
[01:36] AUTOBOT-Elric: digimon
[01:36] AUTOBOT-Elric: yeah i heard that brutha
[01:36] AUTOBOT-Elric: high five!
[01:40] green lantern wannabe: ummmm ok
[01:40] green lantern wannabe: have fun with that
Finally…
[02:04] green lantern wannabe: ok, im going to bed, so i can get up bright and early and get to work on the rest of the stuff i need to do
[02:04] green lantern wannabe: oh and
[02:05] green lantern wannabe: pika pika pika
[02:05] AUTOBOT-Elric: LOL
[02:05] green lantern wannabe: pikachuuuuuuuu
[02:05] AUTOBOT-Elric: I LOVE YOU MAN
[02:05] green lantern wannabe: hahah yeah yeah pika yeah
[02:05] green lantern wannabe: good pika.. imean night
The End!
Author’s Note: Yes, I am aware that naming Bulbasaur and Squirtle as starting Pokemon shows what an old man I am. That’s why I really do need to buy a DS and start training an Infernape or something. Just sayin.