Inktober 2016 and FIRST Videos!

I decided it was time to finally get involved with Inktober. Unfortunately, I also started a new job this month. Well, not that unfortunate. Now I can afford food and rent. The point is, I squeezed in as much drawing as I can. After rewatching the Game Grumps play Mario Maker and Mario Galaxy, I was inspired to draw the red plumber's enemies in new combinations.

Rocky Wrench and Mini-Airship

Bullet Bill and Lakitu

Hammer Bro and Reznor

I got really into this. I mean, designers working on endless sequels strive for new ideas all the time. But you can also develop old ideas, combine them. 20 years after these enemies first showed up and they're still capable of challenging the player in fun new ways!

I wanted to draw some real stuff too, so I found a few reference poses on deviantart and quickly sketched 'em:

This is a sketchbook I bought to keep me company while I'm working at this new place. Last time I got a job I disappeared for a few months and I don't want that to happen again. In fact, I'm so determined to stay in contact with the world I've dared to start video blog posts.

Do YOU dare to look at my face?

Donkers

Donkey Kong and Conkers. Donkey Konkers. Donkers. See how I got there?

We're back to Rare! Okay, I know DK is actually Nintendo's character. But Rare made him the guy we love: the jungle partying, crocodile-squashing hoarder of giant bananas. I certainly have no affection for that other gorilla throwing a tantrum on the girders... The DK platformers on the N64 were my obsession. Well, one of many it seems. I think I borrowed and rented the first two games but I saved all the pennies I could from my paper route to buy Donkey Kong Country 3.

Conkers, well, I gotta confess I never played his game.  I remember at the time reading about a new Rare game featuring a swearing squirrel and thought it'd be cool to play, but I never quite got round to buying it. I could never quite commit to the £40 for it, even though I had a better job by then. Still, he was worthy enough to include in my crossovers.

I ended up putting a lot of effort into the background for this one, after which I crammed a giant monkey on top of all the work I did. So here's the background by itself. Sketch and inks below it.

Donkers Sketch

Donkers Ink

Donkers Background Ink

So this marks the end of my game series! I like theming my art. I'll probably return to this theme again, but three's enough for now. I like trilogies too...

Star Worm Assault

Last week when I said I was in the mood to draw video game fanart, I should have mentioned that it was a long lasting mood. Here's my second anthropomorphic character crossover piece. There... there may be a third.

I remember the advertisments for the Earthworm Jim cartoon as a kid. A man was holding cards with the bad guys on it. "Professor Monkey-For-A-Head" he said. "Queen Slug-For-A-Butt." And then started laughing. Probably fake laughter now I think about it, but as a kid? Seeing an adult laugh at this cartoon was immensely satisfying. I'm pretty sure I'd decided to watch the show before that, but it confirmed with me that it was gonna be brilliant. It was visuals and humour outside anything I'd ever seen before. Even though it was obviously a kid's show, it felt like adults writing comedy rather than adults writing children's entertainment. And the game, which I actually played after, was likewise a lot of fun.

Starfox, well I never got that excited about the game. I just thought Fox was cool. Looked cool, flew a cool spaceship, had a cool attitude... and when I say cool attitude, I don't mean the producers stuck him in the latest fashions and made him listen to hophip. I mean he was brave, noble and bad-ass. But I still wasn't that interested in playing a fly-and-shoot game. Was happy he showed up in Smash Bros though. Why isn't Earthworm Jim in Smash Bros.? Earthworm Jim should be in Smash Bros.

A Rare Sonic Team

I was recently introduced to the show Game Grumps, and one of the first episodes I watched were of the game Banjo-Kazooie. Though I never owned the game, as a kid I was obsessed with it. My next door neighbour had it, and watching those episodes reminded me of being at his house playing it all the time. I probably wanted to play the game more than hang out with him. But don't worry about judging me, we had a 'if you die it's my turn' rule, and I spent most of my time watching him play... Still, we were best buds, that game enthralled me.

See, I loved those iconic game characters. Mario representing Nintendo, Sonic representing Sega... they're just mascots really, but I saw them as heroes with big stories. Their games were built up over time, slowly building up the depth and scale of their world. And when Banjo Kazooie came out? Damn, they nailed icon status for me right away. They didn't start off in a little pixel world with a tiny story, straight away their world was vast, gorgeous and packed with ideas and humour. I never wanted for anything. Of course, the company Rare had a history of gaming and technology advances to build off, but you still need to build something great and I fell in love immediately.

After watching the Banjo-Kazooie episodes and then the epic horror Sonic '06 (you'd have to watch the episodes to know why it's so bad) I got pining to draw some fan-art and here it is.