It’s the birthday of this website, but the presents are for you! No, you can’t exchange them at the store if they don’t fit. First, thank you for visiting the site, whether you’ve been stopping by since the Tripod and Angelfire years or if this is your first time. It’s fun to make these things, but it’s even more fun when people other people enjoy it. But you know what? Instead of doing the usual thing with shots from the generator, I’ve got a short video with most of the sprites in it.

Custom Sprites:
Captain Commando: all-new sprites of Captain Commando (1991 design), Carol, Brenda, Wooky, Eddy, Dick.
Final Fight: Eliza (a.k.a. Elissa) and Mary from Final Fight 2
Mega Man: original Mega Man robot master lineup is completed with new sprites of Cut Man, Guts Man, and Ice Man.
Street Fighter: Kimberly
DC Comics: Green Lantern Hal Jordan
Marvel Comics: Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde
Music: Wu-Tang Killer Bees

Mini-logos:
Capcom: Street Fighter 6 cutscene style logos for Kimberly, Dee Jay, Juri, and Damnd
Atlus: Atlus
Marvel Comics: Shadowcat
Music: Wu-Tang Clan

Custom Sprite Packs: (edit: 2023 July 22) Kitty Pryde and Shadowcat added to the X-Men CotA name graphics pack.

The high amount of new Capcom items is making up for the fact that I planned to do a bigger Capcom anniversary update a while back, but I had to concentrate on commission work. As usual, the new custom sprites and mini-logos are available to use in the GFX image generators


ToyBoss: A few new pics have been added, including that brand new side-scroller legend you see off to the side. Last year’s anniversary update featured a pic of my then-new Tyris Flare figure from Storm Collectibles and this update just happens to parallel that event with my new Gilius Thunderhead figure. I lucked out and caught one of the last sets on sale from Entertainment Earth, the online store where I got some of the luckiest finds of my rebuilt collection. Storm Collectibles is now exclusive to BigBadToyStore and you can find their Golden Axe line (and other Golden Axe items) here. Entertainment Earth still has one “Not Mint” Gilius left for $96.53 and free shipping, but it probably won’t be in stock for long. I also managed to get another figure I’ve wanted for years but aftermarket prices usually kept me away, until I found an incomplete one for a decent price: Sodom! It may have been a Street Fighter figure from SOTA, but we all know Sodom comes from the Final Fight series. I’ll probably have to customize a crest for his helmet and get a spare pair of swords so he can reach his full boss potential.

There’ll be more updates to the ToyBoss section soon because I need to update a few roster pics and my current customized figure project is about halfway done. I also got a new digital camera (on sale, of course) that won’t immediately murder its battery after being on for more than 8 minutes, so I’ll be having fun with that, too.


I mentioned a while back that I’ll have to rewrite a lot of code on the site to get it ready for the updated Dreamhost servers, and that’s going to be my main focus for a while. My hard drive has copies of the old and new code versions of the site running in two different XAMPP installs, which complicates adding new things to the online (and old) version of this site. So while site updates will be limited as I work on the new version of the site, I’m going add more things to the ScrollBoss YouTube channel on the side. Some areas may temporarily disappear when the site upgrade starts in August, so be sure to check out, enjoy, and right-click save what you want before then.


Elsewhere:

Kimimi just posted an article all about my favorite game genre: the beat ’em up! She’s got a few of my faves in there and she also sticks up for a maligned title that deserves another look in its original form.

The commission work I mentioned in the May update, spriting key frames of 18 animated background characters for a fan project that I’ll reveal once I’m told it’s okay to do that, was finished on Sunday. Another artist will be adding frames, smoothing things out, etc. Can’t wait to see how they look in the game!

Now to today’s newness I made A LOT of G.I.JOE-related pixelart last year because it was the 40th Anniversary of G.I.JOE: A Real American Hero, possibly my favorite toyline ever. Two of the characters I didn’t have a chance to sprite then are getting sprites on the last day of Yo Joe June: fan-favorite Shipwreck (with Polly) and an all-new Zandar to replace the old Capcom-based sprite edit.


Both are in G.I.JOE Custom Sprites gallery and the Image Generator.


So now I’m back to trying to get this website ready for the site host upgrade, using a copy of the site on my hard drive to test in the new conditions. The good news: I already have 8 of the 9 areas of the Graphics Section ready for the upgrade with one weird bug I can work around. The bad news: the one section that doesn’t work yet is the Image Generators. In less than a week I’ve got the menus’ main functions working and some very simple screenstyles rendering, but it’s far from stable. So I have some big decisions to make about the generators’ future.

This site’s 23rd birthday is on July 19th, 2023. So the first decision I’m making is to pay extra to delay the site upgrade until August just so the site can be up and running through the site’s birthday month and make new things to show on the anniversary. So let’s party during the anniversary and I’ll see how things look in August. Just be sure to enjoy that update before August because there’s a good chance that at least part of the site will be down for a while, though it’s likely the non-generator parts of the Graphics Section can be still be accessed.


Jada Toys’ Ultra Street Fighter II Ryu and Fei Long figures are in stores now, and I got my pre-order from BigBadToyStore last week.

Ryu and Fei Long


Ryu and Wolverine in 1:12 scale form

Ryu and Wolverine in 1:12 scale form


These figures are great and I can’t wait to see how the rest of the Street Fighters (Chun-Li will be out later this year) and the upcoming Mega Man like turn out.

Congratulations!

Before the greatest game sequel of all time debuted, I had a Karate Champ-shaped hole in my soul because nothing really matched the one-on-one hype people had playing that. If you know the area where I grew up, the Fast Lane corner store had a Karate Champ coin-op there for a long time). The years passed and co-op games with a bit of competition had pretty much eclipsed Vs. game play in titles like Mario Bros. (original recipe, not Super), Gauntlet, Double Dragon, and Final Fight (which Capcom almost called Street Fighter ’89). When Street Fighter II hit, the combination of solid game play, amazing graphics and memorable characters had people hype about it, including people I didn’t even know were into games at the time. The mall arcades here weren’t dead at the time, but SFII definitely brought a lot of new life to them. I have so many great memories of playing this game and the rest of the series with friends, fam, and arcade heads waaay before online play became standard. Thanks to everyone who worked on the game!

(fake screenshot using the arcade graphics to remake the special ending screen from the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo game)

Shake a hand, shake a hand, because it’s that time of year again! I can’t afford to give out toys to all of my friends, so I make an update based on my favorite toys (mostly from the 80s), including toys based on preexisting licenses. This year, G.I.JOE and Masters of the Universe made some strong comebacks, even if some were ridiculously hard to find on store shelves. That’s enough from me, go open your presents!

G.I.JOE: Clutch (v.1 toy, v.1 comic, v.2 tan recolor)
Street Fighter: Chun-Li, Ken and M.Bison (all G.I.JOE figure v.1, made from parts of preexisting Joe and Cobra bodies with new heads)
Masters of the Universe: Zodac (last figure needed for original line-up of figures), Hordak (highly-requested)
Thundercats: Tygra (finishing the original crew of adult Thundercats who weren’t ghosts, sorry Jaga)

All new sprites added to the main image generator!


Whatever it is that you’re celebrating this time of year, I hope it’s a great time for you!

BTW: this WON’T be the last site update for the year… stay tuned…

Finally putting out some pixel print things I’ve been scheming to make for a looong time. First up, the easy part. First up, as teased off and on for over a year, a print of the winner’s podium from Street Fighter II, completely sprited from scratch:

That sprite is now available in the shop! But maybe some of you would rather see someone else in those podium spots. That’s the other thing I’m announcing: Custom prints (a.k.a. SelectPlayer):


For a bit more money than a print, you can commission me to create a customized print! Choose a background and any sprites I’ve made from scratch that you see in the custom sprite galleries (and a few that aren’t in the galleries) for your print. Here’s a quick example:

The basics info is up on the new page for the SelectPlayer prints. Yeah, this is what the “Player Select” in the old X-Men print meant, and that’s how long I’ve been trying to get this together. More background options and sprites made for the prints will be added as time goes on, so stay tuned!

One more thing: since the price of shipping prints from my print supplier has gone up, I’ve temporarily adjusted prices and added deals to offset that a bit for you. 8×10 (and similar size) prints are now $5 each, buy 2 and get one free. Also, buy one 17×11 (and similar size prints) and get one regular 8×10 print free.


Another update will hit the site before September ends. Frequent site visitors who use the Image Generators and look at the SelectPlayer backgrounds may notice a background that they haven’t seen before. You’ll see that background again in the next update, along with some sprite related to it. You’ve got a few days to guess!

Beating River City Ransom: Underground this week kept me in the mood for spriting more characters in the original NES game’s style. I’m still trying to find a balance between sticking in that original game’s look and trying more unique things like RCR:U did. Today’s batch features do-overs for sprites I’d edited from RCR sprites years ago (the Lee Bros. and some Street Fighter stalwarts), other teenage characters (including five with attitude), a few clownish characters (including my own character, Nutroll) and one man who will pity these fools.

also, one character that I thought I’d done for the Megaman NES style finally gets his turn:

You can now have such a thing as Thunderball Fists!

They’ve been added to the River City Ransom custom sprite page and, of course, the Fake Screenshot generator.

2014 only has one Friday the 13th, so here’s an update with some dangerous masked characters who like to work with sharp objects without being an annoying Spanish ninja. Jason got a sprite and mini-logo in a similar update that hit last December, so it’s time to give him a bit more this time. Other characters wearing goalie masks (or masks similar to them) also get a bit of attention today.

GFX Generators – the following characters were updated:
– Jason Voorhees: Street Fighter Alpha (Zero) 3 Vs. portrait and namegfx, Friday the 13th (LJN box) mini-logo.
– Rick Taylor: Wanpaku Graffiti-inspired sprite and SFA 3 portrait (edited from Jason’s) added.
– Crime Fighters – Enemies: Boss 2 (the goalie-masked enemy) sprite added.
– Juli, Juni, and the Dolls: Decapre gets some sprite edits and SFA3 Vs. screen portraits while Juli and Juni get a few more sprites.

By the way, Friday the 13th for the NES, Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti for the Famicom, and Crime Fighters all debuted in 1989, so this update is also part of the Revenge of 1989. See how that all worked out? That rarely happens here, so enjoy it while you can!

Edit: Today’s Illmosis update has the lineart for Jason’s SFa3 portrait along with a Black Widow (Marvel) picture!