Meanwhile, in Metropolis
March 29th, 2024 by PrimeOp
Custom Sprites – DC Comics: New sprites Lex Luthor (70’s Battle Array a.k.a. the Jumpsuit), the Parasite (Silver Age era and DCAU versions) and Mr. Myxzptlk added. Updates for Lois Lane: four earlier sprites modified, new Silver Age and Action Comics #1 work outfit added.
ToyBoss: Added a boxed group shot of Jada Toys Mega Man wave 1, featuring Mega Man, Fire Man, and Ice Man. Been meaning to take more shots of them, but time is tight. But I did get an extra shot of Mega Man and Jada Toys Chun-Li together, and also added a shot I took last December of Chun-Li and Black Widow fighting some Cobra Valkyries.
The new sprites have been added to the main image generator, which I used to make the pic at the top of this post!
Last but not least, here’s the 2024 Superman Sprite Showcase video! Every clip (that I can remember) from the 2020 version has been redone and now has things like those cover-like sprite displays I didn’t come up with until 2021. Look carefully one of the characters who got a new sprite today also got a new animation that isn’t in the update. Best of all, it has WizzyWhipitWonderful‘s perfectly on-character original Superman CPS-2 music!
Friend of the site Arcade Quartermaster just put up new shrines for MASTER’S FURY (Fighting) and AIR BIKE COP (Driving)!
HobbyLink Japan has the 3.75-inch Captain Commando and Jennety/Mummy Commando figures by 52Toys in-stock, with Baby Hoover available for pre-order and Ninja/Sho still sold out. I got my orders in for Cap and Baby. I know a lot of people want 1:12/ 6-inch scale and 7-inch scale versions of everything, but I’m still a big 1:18 fan both for budget and space reasons. These Captain Commando figures look great and I can’t wait to get mine.
February Storm System
February 23rd, 2024 by PrimeOp
Comic Books: Ace Harlem, the first recorded Black hero to star in a comic book story (part of an anthology book) in 1947. He’s been on my to-sprite list ever since I first heard about him a few years ago, so I’m glad he’s also the first public domain character I’ve sprited (and won’t be the last). Marvel Comics: a redrawn Konami stance for Storm. Final Fight: Damnd gets a new standing laugh frame added to the site.
Is that not enough Storm for you? You’re in luck then, because Storm is star of the brand-new Superhero Sprite Showcase video!
That other new pose you saw in the video will hit the site at a later date, I still want to make some adjustments to it.
This is the first real Superhero Showcase I’ve done since finishing the new computer in early 2021, so I had to hunt down and re-render some of the series’ files and streamline how the main videos are assembled. This should make future videos easier, which is a good thing because you’ll be seeing the Superhero Showcase happen more often. My current plan is to make one all-new episode followed by one update until the all four original episodes (Wolverine, Superman, Iron Man, Bat-Man) get remade.
BTW: There was another mandatory PHP update by the hosting company yesterday, so please let me know if you run into any errors. I did some basic checking, along with trying those partial palette choice characters in the image generators and didn’t see any problems. I’ll look around some more this weekend. There will be yet another of these later this year (didn’t seem like this happened that often until recently), so I want to make sure things are alright before all that.
Huge congratulations to the Arcade Quartermaster site celebrating it’s 16-bit anniversary! The site celebrates with a giant update of four new shrines: Final Fight Revenge, the relatively-recently uncovered Danger Express, Lone Wolf and Cub, Steel Gunner 2. Be sure to take a second look at some of the other shrines there if you haven’t been there in a while, because the webmaster’s been updating some of the older sections and you’ll never know what you’ll find (or hear)!
I’ve mostly been working on animations for this year’s videos since NYE, but I’ve got a few things to add this month.
Custom Sprites:
– Mega Man: I’m experimenting with my own Mega Man sprites, because I want to have some that are just mine and not trying to add to the Marvel vs. Capcom sprites.
– Golden Axe: new sprites of Longmoan and male villager. If you visited this site in the old days, you may remember how the index page used to have animated GIFs of arcade version, and that’s part of why I had to animate it myself:
– Mega Man: An all-new Mega Man sprite
– Marvel: Daredevil – two poses, new style, because I disliked the sprite I made in 2018.
– DC Comics: Peacemaker, from the backlog of sprites I’d drawn lineart for but hadn’t pixeltraced yet.
– Illmosis: ScrollBoss site character Vonetta (aka Vernacula) redone holding stack of books sprite in her 2023 outfit. You’ll see more of Vonetta and other ScrollBoss site characters this year.
– Street Fighter Alpha 3 Vs. portraits: Blaze Fielding (SoR2)
Happy New Year! Here’s a little something to start 2024.
I have loose plans for 2024, but that Revenge of 1989 Sprite Showcase is the only thing I’ll be announcing ahead of time. Some of my 2023 plans were called off either because I took time to do commission work or I was busy with that site recoding thing for the server upgrade (and I’m STILL fixing things here and there).
While I’m here, I updated the Custom Sprite Pack Downloads page with a .ZIP with the Street Fighter Alpha/Zero 3 Select-Vs. name graphics I use in the image generators, which also includes A TON of extra names. Like the earlier sets, there is padding on both sides of each graphic to center them on the screen from either side.
Take care and I’ll see you later this month when there’s a full update!
The new sprites and logo were added to the GFX Generators, which I used to make the pic at the top of this post!
It was a busy year for me and I didn’t get to make as many new things as I wanted, and that’s why I split the ToyHaul and Wrap-Up into separate updates and, as you can see below, separate videos. Just as before, it’s a recap video that also has a lot of brand-new shots. You’ll see Street Fighter Alpha 3 Vs. screen displays with all the new portraits I made this year and a slightly animated group shot of some superheroes that surprised me because I forgot I did some of this stuff in early 2023. Hope you enjoy it!
Some long overdue and better sprites of Rodney and Dornail from the Raven’s Dojo comic by one of the hardest working artists and friends I know, Raven Perez. The comic is Not Safe For Work, but I hope you have the day off to jump into it and soak in the madness! BTW: Yes, this comic is also the setting for the Terrorcube game from last year. This comic has been going since 1998, this is the 25th Anniversary!
Thank you for stopping by, for leaving comments (EddieMountaingoat, SKB, and Bad Badtz Maru Jimmy), checking out the YouTube Channel (over 550 subscribers now!) and I hope this site continues to make you feel good about video games and pixel art. See you in 2024!
DISCLAIMER: All characters are copyrighted to the characters who own them. Used without permission, but with respect and love with the intent to spread the honor games of the past and the creativity of their creators. This is just a fan site. ScrollBoss, all its reviews & original written text are copyrighted by James Beaver and aren't to be copied without permission or credit.
