We’re in the middle of Black History Month, so I’m hitting you with some new sprites of Black characters from comics and toys!

Custom Sprites:
– Marvel: the Falcon
– DC Comics: Bumblebee (’00s cartoon and ’80s comic versions)
– M.A.S.K.: Hondo MacLean in his v.1 outfit and Blaster mask

Mini-logos: Bumblebee added to DC Comics.

all new custom sprites and mini-logos were added to the GFX Generator, which is what I used to make the graphic at the top of the post.

Just a heads up: I’m now working more hours at the day job, so I have less time (and energy) to work on this stuff and commissions. I’ll do my best to keep it moving, though! Also, unless we talked about it before now, I won’t be taking on any more commission work until further notice.

For the first update of 2025, and it’s more than me just adding sprites (but there are sprites)

Custom Sprites
– Ganbare Goemon: Goemon gets a sprite based on his design mostly famous for its 16-bit era. Officially the “long overdue” sprite of the update.
– Captain Commando: Mummy Commando gets a scratch-made idle sprite. 3/4ths of the team done!
– Shao-Lin’s Road: Wanpyou, the hero, in his famous GUTS! victory pose.
– Marvel Comics: Black Widow gets a sprite in the same pose as her first full panel appearance in Tales of Suspense #52, drawn by the late great Don Heck. Included styles: ToS #52 green dress, ToS #64 black fishnet outfit, classic black suit, and 80s gray suit.
– Illmosis Network: My character Nutroll seems to be up to something with his new sprite, making the whole update look weird. I can’t be mad at him, I made him up and he’s BEEN weird. I almost didn’t add this to the site today, but I figure maybe he’ll have a more fun sprite later if I post this now. Never can tell with him, but it’s worth a shot.

Mini-logos
– Konami: Shao-lin’s Road

ToyBoss
– pictures: new Mega Man villains pic (Elec Man and Cut Man were my first figures of the year), updated and separated Super Mario rosters (just got a regular Koopa Troopa), X-Men Genesis/Mega Drive roster, and Brotherhood of Mutants (comic). Also: a quick pic of Jada Toys Street Fighter II Cammy, which just arrived from BigBadToyStore this morning.

Game Index
– added Shao-lin’s Road (arcade)

Logos
– added Shao-lin’s Road (arcade)

All new custom sprites and mini-logos have been added to the main GFX Generator, where you can make graphics and fake screenshots like the one at the top of this post!

I also dropped a quick ScrollBoss channel ident to the ScrollBoss YouTube channel a few days before this update.

July 19th, 2025 will be the 25th Anniversary of the day I started this site. I can’t believe it, and I don’t know where the time went, but at least I’ve got something to show for it. Thanks for stopping by and making it even more fun to know I’m not alone in liking this stuff, back in the days when pixels weren’t fashionable. I don’t know if I’ll be doing anything big to celebrate, but I’d like to try.

I’ve got non-anniversary plans, though I’m not sure how much commission work will eat into that like it did last year, so I’m going to cool it with the teases for now. But I’m going to try and finish some of that stuff I teased before and didn’t get to complete (specific things in this update were made for that).

I’m not feeling 100% right now, so the updates may be small for a while as I try to get better. But I’ll try to keep at least a small update per month going until I can grab some health item from a Castlevania brick or Metro City garbage can and get back in the game. See you in February!

Time for the Wrap-Up, including a dip back into the Revenge of 1989!

Of course, all the new sprites were added to the GFX Generators, where you can use menus to make a pic like the one at the top of this post!

Finally, it’s time for the Wrap-Up video. But it’s not just that, it’s a recap of 2024’s updates and videos, a mini Toy Haul with 3 displays, and another show of Final Fight clips that’s basically a preview for a larger Final Fight showcase in 2025.

That’s all for 2024. Thanks for visiting the site and I hope you’ll have even more fun in 2025!

Shake a hand, shake a hand, it’s Christmas time again and that means it’s time for the Toyhaul! The 2024 Toyhaul site update has new pixel art to celebrate two franchises celebrating their 40th anniversaries and one celebrating its 50th! The first, obvious one was planned, but the other two just happened to work out that way!

Transformers: a new Optimus Prime sprite to celebrate the 40th anniversary. I think I’ve finally got a style together that I like for making Transformers sprites, so keep an eye out for more next year.

Princess of Power: The line gets its own gallery for the 40th anniversary! a new and more powerful She-Ra sprite takes the sword from the sprite I made of her years ago, and she’s joined by friend Frosta!

Microman/Micronauts: Takara’s Microman toyline, known in the United States as Micronauts, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year! Microman M121 Mason (and the 3 other variants of his subset of figures) gets a sprite in the same pose he strikes in his portrait in Takara’s DreamMix TV World Fighters for the PS2, the Hudson/Konami/Takara crossover fighting game that also stars Convoy/Optimus Prime. Believe it or not, I was supposed to have this done for last year’s toy haul but ran out of time, but I did finish (and didn’t post) the Microman mini-logo then. Speaking of which…

Mini-logos: … I added that Takara Microman logo and the Mego Micronauts toy logo
.

The new sprites and logos were added to the GFX Generators where you can make fake screenshots like the one at the top of this page. Just warning you ahead of time that Optimus is too tall for the MvC ending screen.

ToyBoss: A batch of new photos were added, including group shots of some 1:12 scale game heroes and villains, TMNT heroes and villains roster pics, Marvel Legends Avengers figures I have now, and a G.I. JOE classified Cobra “blue uniforms” group shot. But my favorite is a comic/toy team-up pre-fight pic that I experimented with earlier this year with plans of a 3rd obvious character joining that fight.

The “Trick or Beat ‘Em Up” project has been heating up with a lot of new info lately, including news that Megan McDuffee will sing for the horror brawler if the Ko-Fi campaign is successful! More info about that here and the game’s Ko-Fi page is here.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year to those of you who won’t be back until next year. If you’re still sticking around the internet, get ready, because next week is… THE WRAP-UP!

A bigger update is coming, but I just wanted to give an earlier heads-up about what’s happening. Here’s what’s in today’s update:
Sprites: Fixes and improvements to all the Final Fight galleries.
ToyBoss: A new Marvel Legends group pic of the playable Captain America and the Avengers line-up with the recent do-over of Iron Man’s “Neo-classic” armor (but with the later John Romita Jr. space boots). The retro carded figure from a few years ago is that exact version, but that mold was from when MLs were a bit smaller, making him look odd if he stands next later figures.

Due to a lot of offline things that have been going on for months, the main December update (not this one) will not be that big this year, or at least as big as I planned. In fact, I can say that about a lot of the past year. Even though I need a break to give my drawing hand some rest, I was able to finish some of the static sprites I planned for the site and some animations you’ll see on video before 2025 starts. Here’s a preview of what’s on the way:

There will be a small toy-themed update next week, and then the Wrap-Up will happen a few days before the new year starts.

Reminder: Rob “Dire51” Strangman’s books about video games (and more) are available again on Lulu.com!