Pixel Painting - Pixel Pikachu (Pokémon Mystery Dungeon)

This painting was done as a donation to a local fundraiser. This was my contribution to a Pokémon-themed prize pack. It's a decent size at 20"x20".

I searched through many Pokémon games to find the exact style of sprite I was looking for. After searching through the highly recommended Spriters Resource, I decided on a sprite from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness on the Nintendo DS.

I changed up the usual background too. I went back to basics and found the grass tiles from Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow and colorized them myself. I like the way it turned out, and it's way more interesting than the standard solid color or gradient shading background.

Commissions are always welcome. Price varies based on the size and complexity of the sprite/scene. I moderate comments, so feel free to leave one with your contact email and request and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Pixel Painting - Small Mario (Super Mario All-Stars)

This painting was done as a donation for a raffle. There was a small Nintendo-themed lot, and this was my main contribution. It's not too large, measuring in at 12"x12".

I know it's more pink than red for the hat and shirt, but after doing the Super Mario World painting, I really like the more passive shades of pink as opposed to the in-your-face red, especially when doing 16-bit stuff. Hopefully the painting can help boost interest for this lot. I considered doing the actual Super Mario World Mario sprite, but I had to crank the whole painting out in a day, so I opted for this simpler design instead.

Plus, that dark yellow kind of irritates me.

Commissions are always welcome. Price varies based on the size and complexity of the sprite/scene. I moderate comments, so feel free to leave one with your contact email and request and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Pixel Painting - And Make it Double (Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow)

This commission was done to be given as a wedding gift .

How. Awesome.

After working with the buyer to figure out exactly what they wanted, they settled on the original Game Boy sprites of Jessie and James. But again, like the Gym Leader sprites, there wasn't any good color versions of these characters in this form.

Those colors are...just awful.

I poked around the internet, seeing what others had done in terms of coloring these sprites, and came up with a hybrid of the parts I liked the best. I think it turned out pretty damn good.

The only thing I might change is the light shading on their clothes. Right now it's a very light blue, which works well with the background choice and all, but I was toying with making it a shade of gray instead. I think both work fine, so no worries on my end.

The buyer said that the newlyweds were ecstatic to receive it, since they are apparently huge Pokémon fans, of Jessie and James in particular. I'm glad it all worked out. There's not a ton of in-progress photos, because I was doing a million things at the same time due to the holidays, and my whole setup was wedged into a poorly lit, crowded room. Too much fun.

Commissions are always welcome. Price varies based on the size and complexity of the sprite/scene. I moderate comments, so feel free to leave one with your contact email and request and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Pixel Painting - Friendly Rivals (Sonic & Knuckles)

It was only a matter of time before a Sonic commission came up. To reminisce how big Sega was back in the day is kind of hilarious. They caused so much havoc in the balance of power that no one had been able to do before. That five-year triumph period alone is enough to cement them in video game history. And it was all arguably a fluke, because even when they were on top they were making outrageously stupid decisions.

While they've had some financial success since then, quality-wise they've been all over the board (mostly on the crappy side). Sonic is a video game icon, though, and his image has allowed Sega to continue to root itself in the minds of players everywhere (for better or for worse).

The Sonic & Knuckles cartridge had the "lock-on technology," which I still think is really cool, as well as a huge technical achievement. Knuckles wasn't even supposed to be a very important character, but it was the 90s, and he had attitude, so yeah.

And I love love love Blue Sphere. I have put so many hours into that repetitive, simple, awesome game.

There are a lot of sprites for each character, so I sent the buyer most of them and let him choose which poses he liked best. He chose well. That dark blue on Sonic is such a pain in the ass though. It's so translucent, but attempting to make it more opaque always adjusts the color too far.

Still using that Mega Man-esque background. It still looks good. I am experimenting with others, just because I'm starting to get bored with this one. I had originally thought of doing the white lines crisscrossing on the black background that Sega always used for Genesis/Mega Drive stuff, but it didn't look very good. I'm happy with how they turned out all the same.

Commissions are always welcome. Price varies based on the size and complexity of the sprite/scene. I moderate comments, so feel free to leave one with your contact email and request and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Pixel Painting - Kanto Badges (Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow)

Pokémon is such a great series, and I had the pleasure of being just the right age when it first came over to the States. Even after all these years, it's still going strong. It's been refined and tweaked over the years so that it still manages to stay fresh. My favorite will always be my first, though. I know a lot of people around my age who were there at the beginning regard Red and Blue Version very highly. Vocabulary, locations, individuals, statistics, and the Pokémon themselves spring instantly to mind when the topic comes up. It really has stood the test of time (although a literal mountain of marketing doesn't hurt either).

For colorizing the sprites, I looked a lot at existing efforts done by others, as well as the badges from the anime. The end result was a hybrid of all of them.

It's interesting to note that even though the pixel size seems obvious, the perceived pixels are misleading. They're actually composed of four smaller ones. Certain badges give this away by having very thin columns or rows. When the issue arose during the project, it initially presented a dilemma. I ended up adjusting certain sprites entirely to make them more manageable, although two of them still retain their original dimensions.

Each canvas measures 8" x 8". I found it interesting that the Japanese names for the badges are extremely exciting things such as: Gray Badge, Pink Badge, and Green Badge. The fact that the badge names are written in katakana makes it make sense, though. And it only really applies to Generation I. 

Boulder Badge

Cascade Badge

Thunder Badge

Rainbow Badge

Soul Badge

Marsh Badge

Volcano Badge

Earth Badge

The Mega Man-esque background has become my new favorite. It really seems to fit with almost everything. And since all of these projects go to different people, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

I also just realized that I missed eight pixels on the Volcano Badge, so I should probably touch that up before sending it out.

Commissions are always welcome. Price varies based on the size and complexity of the sprite/scene. I moderate comments, so leave one with your contact email and request.

Pixel Painting - Bruce Lee

I am very pleased with the way this came out. It was my first non-game painting, and it took a lot of thought on how I would get things the way I wanted them to come out. It had to be detailed enough, but not too complex to paint. Thankfully, I know quite a bit of Photoshop, and that helped a lot in getting things prepared.

I also had to crank it out before Christmas, as it was a gift for somebody. I did all the prep work in about three hours, and sat down for pretty much the entire next day on the actual painting part. I was relieved that I had already gotten everything else ready for Christmas. This was the last thing on my list.

Commissions are always welcome. Price varies based on the size and complexity of the sprite/scene. I moderate comments, so leave one with your contact email and request.