So the big 7th Anniversary ScrollBoss bash is over. That chunky, green-and-black action-adventure game site was 7 years old last Thursday and I celebrated with daily updates from then ’til today. Damn, I’m tired. While nothing anniversary-specific was done, I pretty much just did what I usually do, but more of it. Added a ton more sprites, some sprite edits, fixed a few nagging layouts, threw in a small MUGEN stage and even fixed up a Beats of Rage conversion of Rolento that I started long ago. But of all the things I did during the celebration, my favorite has to be an update of the ‘Brawlstreet U.S.A. pagetop banner:

Click to see full size

Starring in that are a bunch of Capcom sprites altered to recreate a bunch of Beat-em-up video game stars who vary in levels of obscurity. Cody (Final Fight) puts his white T and blue jeans back on to rep for Capcom. Striker from “Bad Dudes” shows up to punch a ninja in his face and put in work for Data East. Jimmy Lee jumpkicks in the name of the Double Dragons and Techos of Japan/Atlas. Adam Hunter from the first Streets of Rage game checks in as Sega’s contribution to the cause. Blood, the big surprise of the banner, is the boxing member of the Cobras in Konami’s overlooked classic “Vendetta” arcade game. For fans of the game, he’s hitting the skinny guy that carries the knife and the basic thug with red pants lurks at the end of the picture. The guy in white and light blue is Thomas from what’s considered the original Beat-em-up: Kung-Fu Master. Purists may complain that I should have put him in his outfit from Vigilante, but I thought it’d blend in with the background too much. Barely visible is Rick Norton from my favorite underrated BEU series, Rushing Beat (Rival Turf, Brawl Brothers, and Peace Keepers in the U.S.) in rapid energy punch mode. This new version is a lot less Capcom-centric with the waiting enemies especially with Double Dragon’s Linda and Lopar/Rowper (complete with a oil drum in his hands!) waiting for their turn to jump in. For added spice, the graphitti is made from game logos and ScrollBoss site section logos. Of course, the scanlines are there to discourage sprite edit thievery. I’m a jerk like that.

As fun as all the anniversary stuff was to do, I’m glad it’s over so I can kinda rest. But all that banner did was inspire ideas for more banners like that, but with different genres. It’s no accident that the wrestling and ninja characters are missing from this banner…

First, I apologize for not doing a music post yesterday (Friday). I spent the early part of the day trying to make headway on a graphic generator that may be ready about 2 weeks from now (or sooner). As I was gathering video links, a got a phone call and caught a case of the disease that some call SED (Somebody Else’s Drama). Apparently, no one respects the fact that I have a surplus of the crazy and keep offering me portions of theirs. So as long as nothing nutty happens, I’ll have a music post this upcoming Friday. Instead of being playing the vague game with the generator I’m messing with, here’s a pic:

It’s based on the ‘Marvel Super Heroes’ VS. screen, but I’m hoping to have it imitate a few other VS. screens including some that I’ll design myself. What’s irking me now is that I had the player 1 logo working Friday, but it won’t work now. I’ll look for the glitch later in the week. For all I know, it won’t even have the MSH mode by the time I’m done since it’d require MSH-style portraits for the ton of custom characters I plan to add. And while they won’t have custom portraits (yet), they will have custom mini-logos like the ones from MSH and Marvel vs. Capcom. Of course, I’ll have to sneak some of my own characters in the mix, too.

BTW: I finally got to read the new issue of 52. Look, I love this series and I love it by the pound. But it would’ve actually been more of a surprise if that character had lived and not died. I know, everything looks less shocking in comparison to Sobek’s impression of Sir Chomps-a-Lot. It’s just that the concept of a male character’s girlfriend or wife dying to fuel the male character’s rage and guilt has been done so much that it’s almost a given now. Then again, it’s not over yet. Who knows what’ll happen and who will come back by the time it’s all said and done.

… which is only kinda-sorta funny if you have this funky song rolling through your head.

Seriously, I have a bad habit of being cryptic about things as if anyone truly gives a damn about what I’m doing next. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it looks to anyone else. That’s probably the last reason why I operate in vague mode. Usually, it’s from something being a spoiler in a comic of mine. I have loose road map of where most of these character will be and it’s mostly about trying to find the route to use as a story.

Then there’s the irritating reason that I have to be vague in the fan game community. In a few places, I’ve noticed a pattern of things being announced followed by some hack who does a quick, sloppy, poot butt variation of the other person’s idea just so they can be the first to finish it. I can’t post preview work anymore because someone will just swipe it and throw it in their project while pretending that they did it. It’s already happened to me a few times and I’ve just cancelled projects because of it. Here’s an example: the reason why I didn’t post a separate sprite of Archangel, upload the improved version of Spider-Woman or show the animation of that Batroc on this page is because they’re part of the same project I’ve been messing around with for a while. And what sucks is that I can’t even hint at it because it’d be an easy idea to copy even if the chump doesn’t have all the extra stuff for it. As you’ve probably guessed, it does take a lot of the fun out of it in a way. But when I actually finish it and spring it on people, it’s more of a surprise and people seem to dig it a lot more. I’ve traded the strong motivation of immediate public feedback to getting it done before somebody swipes it for a hentai bonus game. Eh, I’ll live.

In much less vague news, I think I’m going to draw each part of that 10K hits pic separately, show most of the parts on their own then digitally put them together. It’ll probably be the bottom one first since it has Blue Beetle and the Monarch in the same place at the same time.

For those who don’t know, a “sprite edit” is when you take pre-existing animation frames (sprites) from a 2-D video game and use a graphic program to change (or edit) them into new poses or even new characters. Why use pre-existing sprite? To make the new characters look like they really belong in the game.

- For fun **raises hand**
- To be used in fan/tribute games **keeps hand raised**
- For game site graphics (still raised)
- For message board avatars **tries and fails to pretend that he gives a s#$% **
- For other people to collect and talk about how they have TEH RARE SPRITEZ **glares menacingly**

I started doing sprite edits back in the early days of my ScrollBoss game site just to class up the joint. Eventually, I started using Capcom sprites to recreate characters that I’d love to see in their fighting games. Some pop up on message boards, in sigs and on other people’s sites. If you’ve ever seen a Capcom-style Baroness animation that looks like some guy put WAY too much work into it, that was probably from me. I really got into doing these things back when I had some severe artist’s block just to keep my creativity going. The funny thing is how that’s what the few people that have heard of me know me from while I’m known as ‘that guy that draws stuff around here’ in real life. Gotta thank the M.U.G.E.N. community for that, since the spriters and editors there inspired me to get insane with it.

Anyway, here’s the latest thing that I’ve finished. I started it back in 2004 and just got around to finishing this just as I typed this. Much thanks to SHOH and ryoga&hobbes who gave good feedback that helped make a better looking Professor X.

Yes, that’s a recreation of the Jim Lee cover from X-Men #1. I kept doing sprite edits for that, but the one that held the whole thing up was Archangel. I’m pretty sure the work on this went slowly because of how I lost my ability to give a damn about the X-men a few years back. It’s a long story that I’ll save for it’s own post. The reason that I quit reading X-Men for the first time is too absurd to just mention quickly. You’ll see.