First of all, the Splatterhouse revival game for the Playstation 3 and X-Box 360 is out today. Fans of Splatterhouse and blood-soaked horror in general should really consider giving the game a shot. They team worked hard to make a game that old-school fans would love and even includes the original arcade game and the Genesis/Mega Drive sequels as unlockable content. It looks like a revival game done the right way and that’s a rare, beautiful thing. But you don’t have to take my word for it…
Check out the official site if you haven’t kept up with it’s development.
I’m still working on this weekend’s update. Lots of new custom sprites, minilogos and GFX Generator features and additions are on the way and nearly all of it is comic-related. One new feature will make the GFX Generator backgrounds a bit more interesting.
There are two reasons for this. The first is that I have paid artwork assignments to finish and I don’t have a lot of extra time to work on the site. The second is that I’d like a bit of time to actually play games again now that I have a PS3. The biggest reason is that I’d like to make a nice Thanksgiving weekend update and I’ll have the vacation days to do just that. The “Superhero” update I had planned will probably be scaled back and happen during this next update and will include that DC villain I have a preview shot of over there. Sorry for the wait but I’ll try to make up for it.
EDIT: (2010 November 14, 3:24 AM) – I just noticed that the so-called improvements I made to the GFX Generators in the last update also glitched up the minilogo screenstyles in the Vs. Maker. That is now fixed and I apologize for the errors.
The next real site update will be next week but I’m throwing some extra stuff out there for the funk of it. Here’s what’s cracklin’ today:
GFX Generators – The “name graphic display” part of the second menu has been cleaned up, more Vampire Savior/Hunter 2 name graphics were added (Arthur, Dracula, R.Taylor) and Arthur just got a custom portrait:
Game List – I forgot to mention that I got the best early Christmas present last week. Why should you give a crap? Because the game that I got with it has just been added to the Game List. What game is that? Little Big Planet. I finally have a so-called current gaming console so I’ll be able to work in more content about certain game re-releases and revivals.
GFX Generators – The Vampire Savior 2 VS. screen has been upgraded to use that game’s name graphics. All Darkstalkers characters and one Castlevania character can use them. New characters have been added and the breakdown is like this:
Capcom: Jedah, Lei-Lei
Nintendo (new!): Mario (with alt. palettes), Samus Aran (no armor & Zero Suit shared palettes)
Konami: Death, Belmont Clan (Simon/Trevor with lots of alt. palettes)
IREM: Thomas/Vigilante gets his black and white outfit from Kung-Fu, the NES version of Kung-Fu Master.
Custom Sprites – Simon Belmont (NES stance) added to the Konami page. I plan to improve it a bit more before I use it as a base for other versions of the outfit.
Mini-logos – Jedah was added to the Capcom section, Samus (NES style) was added to the Nintendo section and Trevor (Belmont) was added to the Konami section.
I’ve also done some horror and NES themed updates on Illmosis for the last few weeks with new art of Death and Medusa from Castlevania and the Bubble Head Nurse from Silent Hill.
What was going to be a Halloween update expanded when I found out about the 25th Anniversary of the NES. The easiest way to celebrate that is with some Castlevania-related stuff along with things related to my favorite NES games. Due to work-related things beyond my control, I’m splitting this update into two. Most of it drops today with what you see here. There will be a small update on Sunday to go along with the Illmosis art site update. Sunday’s update will have newness to the GFX Generators. Here’s what’s new today:
Game Index – The NES versions of Bionic Commando and Castlevania were added to the index. Bionic Commando’s entry has a few of my notes on certain things in the game including something that people keep citing as another localization mistake.
Custom Sprites – a scratch-made fighting game scale sprite of Death (Castlevania 1) was added to the Konami page. A smaller, better version of the scratch-made Mario sprite was added to the Nintendo page.
Sprites – A new Super Mario page starts with some sprites and lots of animations from Super Mario Bros. for the NES. Yes, just about every other site has Mario sprites but I had to make a few .GIFs for this place, too. New sprites and animations were added to the Bionic Commando (NES) and Castlevania (CV1) pages.
Fake Screens – New fake Famicom-style screenshot of the Richter vs. Dracula battle from Dracula X: Chi no Rondo and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
Mini-logos – Medusa (Castlevania), Death (Castlevania).
That’s it for today. A bit more will be added on Halloween in two days.
I have some artwork and commission projects that need to get done so the update is kind of light. Luckily I finished something before things got thick…
Jake’s SFA-style sprite set is now ready to be downloaded. This completes the four-man group of lowest-level thugs from Final Fight. There will probably be additions and improvements to these in the future but it’s good to have the basics of the whole group finally done. This will also be this year’s last Custom Sprite Pack for Project:Drone. Things are getting busy like Kid ‘n Play so it’s time to put that project on pause. I don’t know how many more drone characters I’ll take a shot at next year but I have a few ideas.
GFX Generators – The following backgrounds were added to the GroupShot Maker:
Apocalypse Now! (MSHvsSF and XMvsSF versions)
SFA3 stages: Cody, Rolento, Ryu and Sodom
Darkstalkers: Demitri
Justice League Task Force: Wonder Woman
BTW: Check out Illmosis this coming weekend if you’re a Pac-Man fan. That’s all I’m sayin’ for now.
Custom Sprite Packs– a sprite editor who goes by the name of Laslunder has sent a Work-in-progress Cody sprite pack that matches up with the sprite in my Street Cody sprite pack. They’re not 100% finished but will help boost the efforts of anyone who wants to make a whole sprite set of Cody in street clothing. He has WAY more edits in there than my pack has! I planned to update my Cody pack after I made the Jake pack but Laslunder’s work nudged me to work a bit on mine again so my Cody pack been updated as well. There are some new and improved sprites but here’s the important stuff:
Improved standing animation with better handwraps.
new Cyclone Kick.
If you downloaded it before, download it again because almost everything has been improved. The improved sprites and SFA3 portrait were also added to the Graphic Generators. Be sure to check out Laslunder’s pack, too!
NOTE: Those downloaded the PrimeOp Cody pack before 1:30 PM Eastern Standard Time should re-download it again. I just made some fixes to the collar in the last few frames thanks to some sound advice from Kiwi.
Custom Sprite Downloads – the “Simons (SFA-style)” sprite set is finally done and available on that page. ALSO: please re-download Dug because the earlier version had a few pixels cut off the boots in two frames. Those have now been fixed. I’d have made a video to show you Simons in action but my internet connection is still messed up. You’ll have to wait a while longer for Jake because I have some other projects that need some serious attention. The wait won’t be all that long since the new stuff is mostly just hair and goatees. I’ll probably make one last demo video for them using the OpenBoR engine.
edit (2:09 PM EST) : I threw a few more things into the update
New character: Deadshot (with mini-logo)
Updated characters: Capt. Commando, Gambit, Jin, Sabretooth (alt palettes and Birdie, his assistant), Spider-Man, and Venom
Finally, I had Clash at Demonhead on the brain after reading the Scott Pilgrim books and seeing the film and finally noticed that I didn’t have ANYTHING about that game on this site other than the game’s logo. It’s odd because it’s one of the many games that I could only rent and never saw in stores during it’s run right along with River City Ransom and Ogre Battle. I think some graphics from it were part of the infamous “Lost Folders” situation from 2005 after horrible HD crash. This update rights that wrong in many of the following section updates:
Sprite Index– new Clash at Demonhead page with a few sprites and animations. Game Index – Clash at Demonhead (NES) Company Index – Vic Tokai Logos – animated Clash at Demonhead (only the main loop) Mini-logos – Darkseid and Deadshot 1989 – Hey, guess what game was added to the 1989 list? Clash at Demonhead? Well, yeah.
GFX Generators – Vs. Maker now crops portraits according the screenstyle. I planned to do this sooner but delayed it because I also planned on re-arranging the screenstyle data file structure because they’re getting messy. This lets you use the bigger portraits (like the Vampire Hunter/Savior 2 win portraits) and crops them so they don’t cross over into parts of the screen they shouldn’t be in.
New characters: Apocalypse, Dhalsim
Captain, Ninja and Baby were updated to have the proper sprites to recreate the scene. Baby Commando’s sprite in the game isn’t complete so I made a partially filled-in edit of it just for use with the group pose. Just keep him in the back and covered up. I’ll get that finished some day.
Minilogos – Dhalsim
This is going to be the last weekly post for a while. There are some other projects I need to get done (including a commission) so it’s time to switch gear to that for a while. The next update should be in two weeks which should give me enough time to finish the current commission, work on some art and finally finish those Simmons sprites. Maybe my internet connection will be fixed by then so it won’t take nearly a minute to upload three screenshots that total to 5.28 KB. So updates will be every two weeks again. I still plan to do that superhero-based update this year and there could be more surprises depending on how many things I can get finished. See you in two weeks.
BTW: Please go to the theater to see Scott Pilgrim.
So the last update reeked of weak sauce because I’m also working on art commissions. That’s partly because I worked on more than one thing. This week’s update does the opposite by being pure GFX Generator updates. Again, it’s not much but it’s better than just updating one character.
New Vs & GroupShot characters: Jin Saotome, Shadow Lady (Chun-Li palette + minilogo)
New GroupShot-only characters: Pure & Fur, Saki Omokane
New sprites + palettes: Morrigan, Roll (Capcom), Venom
New palettes: Superman
GroupShot stages: TMNT Vs. stage updated (now 100% remade), Golden Axe – Select Player, MvsC: Moon and H.Q. of Evil, Justice League Task Force: Daily Planet and Gotham rooftop, Brawl Brothers player select screen
Speaking of Jin, if you’re ever ripping his sprites from MvsC, know that neither in-game palette shows all 16 colors at once. P1 mixes kneepad and jumpsuit whites and P2 mixes the jumpsuit’s black with the black linework from the P1 palette. I had to get both versions of every pose and use some recolor-fu on the P2 sprites to map the main black pixels to a new 16th color. If you had fun reading that, just imagine how much fun I had doing that. Just remember that I do these things for you because I care. I really do.
Also: XuhanShi, one of the two fine people I’m doing commissioned art for, has been added to the Special Thanks section of the credits page. I put part of that money straight into paying my Dreamhost account for this and my other sites. That helped keep the lights on in this site so I think he deserves a spot in the Special Thanks section.
