This 26th anniversary update may be low key compared to last year’s big 25th anniversary celebration, but today’s newness brings new sprites of one whole sci-fi game trio, completes another sci-fi team, brings in a classic comic book villain who recently became a final boss, and gives a vehicle to another final boss!

Custom Sprites:
Alien Storm (new): long overdue idle stance sprites of Karla, Gordon, and Scooter. I also sprited Karla’s select screen pose.
Donkey Kong (new separate): completely redrawn Donkey Kong Junior
Flicky (new): Flicky
Kid Icarus: Palutena
Mega Man: Dr. Wily in the Wily UFO 2 (open and closed)
Quartet (new separate): Joe and Lee (finally)
Marvel Comics: Annihilus (classic comic)

Mini-logos:
Capcom: Andore (SF6 cutscene)
Nintendo: Kid Icarus
Sega: Flicky
Marvel: Annihilus

Game Index: MARVEL Cosmic Invasion

Toyboss: Took a new TMNT villain group pic, adding the VHS box ‘toon Foot Soldier.

New custom sprites and mini-logos added to the GFX Generators.

This will probably be the last time I do an anniversary update like this, so next year’s will be different. PROBABLY, it depends on how certain things I’m working on turn out between now and then. The main thing is to not just have another “bigger update than usual.” The main thing is to still do something special for all the people who still come through to check out this old website.

Here’s a couple of teasers from recent sprite linework scans and all I’ll say is that’s both of them are super-villains.

Thank you for visiting the site and I hope you come back for more pixels and fun when you get the chance!

ToyBoss/Toybox – The toy photo galleries have been redone and now share a bit of code with the pixel art galleries. Not sure how much you’ll notice on your side of the screen, but hopefully this makes the page load more quickly. It also lets me add a lot of photos that I left out to keep the page’s file size down. Some of the galleries now have different urls, but the old ones should still work, too.
Double Dragon: Syndicate Collectibles: First I got Jimmy Lee and took some new photos of both brothers and some faked enemies. Then I got Willy, the game’s final boss and a beast of an action figure, and took a group pic of all three regular figures. Keeping my fingers crossed that this line continues, especially for Abobo and Linda.
Street Fighter: New heroes group shot including my new Jada Toys Blanka. I’m SLOWLY catching up in this line.
Masters of the Universe: New gallery with three new Masterverse pics.
Marvel Legends: A big group shot of characters who were in the Marvel side of the legendary Mego World’s Greatest Super-Heroes toy line up (except Conan).
DC Comics: added Justice League “original seven” pic and updated heroes pic, including new additions McF Martian Manhunter and Captain Marvel/Shazam.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: updated heroes lineup pic with NECA comic Casey Jones (gray shirt), archive pic of the Pizza Club boxes stacked up.
Wrestling: added an old “everybody I have” photo from March 16th, 2024. Sadly, I didn’t have a figure of Stone Cold then.


The site anniversary is on the 19th of July, but I don’t know what I’ll be able to finish for it because I’ll be working on commissions for a while. I already have a few finished sprites to add and linework already drawn for more, so it definitely won’t be an empty update.


The brand new Warp Point website brings a new school approach to the old school concept of video game website webrings. It groups together the latest updates from a wide, growing variety of video game fansites, and I’m proud to say that the ScrollBoss site was invited to be a part of it, too. With the internet being cluttered with more and more meaningless slop, it’s a great way to find new game sites or be notified that a favorite site recently updated. Their 88 x 31 pixel button (so glad to see that format making a comeback) is now part of this site’s sidebar quick links, and I’ll be adding it to more places soon, so you (and I) and go there and see what the other sites are up to. Really, that’s how it was when I started in the 00s and I’m grateful that someone has brought that back again!


Beatdown City Survivors, the horror-flavored sequel to Treachery in Beatdown City, has been available for a while, and you can get the scoop on the official site!


Once again shouting out the Pizza Kidd pixel art beat ’em up Kickstarter, fighting its way to the finish line, so please help out if you can!


Kimimi made a post about getting Escalator Action (not a typo, not a photo manipulation) and I’ve been waiting for that review ever since. That wait is over, so check it out on Kimimi’s blog!

While it’s no surprise that there’s a toy-related update waiting for you on Christmas Eve, the real surprise is that you’re finally getting some game-related sprites!

Custom Sprites:
Toy Pop: new gallery with brand-new sprites of heroes Pino and Acha!
G.I.JOE: adds new pose for Hawk with a modified “calm stand” base (like a few other G.I.JOE original 13 characters this year) and updated his 2019 sprite to match it.
Princess of Power: (added Dec. 25th) Glimmer

Mini-logos: Toy Pop added to the Namco gallery

The new sprites and mini-logo were added to the main GFX Generator, where I made the pic at the top of this post. Also, a new background with the Playmates Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toyline was added to the Group, Vs., MvC ending, 88×136, and box screenstyles!

ToyBoss: I planned to have more pictures, but pre-orders of two of the figures that were going to be in those pictures have been delayed (the Kirby Nendo reissue got delayed to next May!). But today’s update finally adds pics of the Punisher/Nick Fury two-pack based on Capcom’s arcade game, and retaking the line-up of the Konami X-Men with the new Cyclops/Marvel Girl two-pack. But I also made huge progress catching up on Jakks’ Sega figures, finally getting the Altered Beast Werewolf, Shinobi Joe Musashi, Golden Axe’s Gilius Thunderhead (now I have him in TWO scales!), and Streets of Rage’s Roo! Jakks’ scale for these hover around 5-inches, but I think some fit in with other scales. I took a few pics to show how they look next to 52Toys 4-inch scale Capcom line. So while most of them look big compared to the others, the Werewolf fits.

Whatever it is you celebrate around this time of year, I hope it’s a good, safe, and peaceful one!

Been working on commissions lately, so I didn’t have a lot of time to make new things. But I still wanted to drop a quick update separate from what’s coming next week.
ToyBoss – added an updated TMNT Villains pic with the new NECA cartoon Shredder, all-new heroes and villains line-up pics for DC (a mixed DC Direct, Mattel, and McFarlane collection) including that new “Silver Age” Superman (really the José Luis García-López, artist of DC Comics Presents and the legendary DC Comics Style Guide), new Marvel Legends S.H.I.E.L.D. lineup, and my modern Autobot Transformers.
edit: added a pic that I just took of Jakks Sonic holding a Mattel Electronics Football game from a Super Impulse Toy Box I just got.
edit 2: added a pic I forgot: my updated Jakks Pacific Sonic 4-inch figure with added Classic Amy figure.

So what’s coming next week?


The next update hits on May 22nd!

Today’s update has fighter-sized sprites of movie characters from 1989 and some new Kunio/RCR 8-Bit style sprites of 1989 game characters!

Custom Sprites:
DC Comics: 1989 Batman and criminal from the opening scene, and a generic Joker gang member.
Movies: Indiana Jones (Last Crusade style). Also, this gallery now has navigation near the top that takes you directly to a movie’s section by clicking on its mini-logo.
Kunio-Kun/RCR 8-Bit style: Haggar, redone Poison and Roxy, and Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) from Do the Right Thing (1989).

Mini-logos: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade added to movies.


The bigger sprites and mini-logo were added to the Fight-size generator and the Kunio/RCR sprites were added to the Fakescreen generator.

Bonus 1989 content: my pre-ordered TMNT VHS April O’Neil figure by NECA just got here weeks ahead of the ship date. She’s in both the arcade and NES TMNT games that were released in 1989, so she’s theme-appropriate!

I thought I missed my chance to get this earlier, so I feel lucky here. I’ll try to get some photos of her and the green machine (I have all four VHS box-release Turtles, too) before the month is through.

Reminder: The Revenge of 1989 – (35th anniversary edition) Sprite Showcase hits at the end of the month and I’m mostly working on that. Here’s a few teases of what else I was working on this week:

I’m done with commission work for a while, so I’m back with a few real updates!


The ToyBoss section was updated with more new photos and up-to-date roster photos. One is a quick shot I took yesterday of my still-carded Captain Commando figures by 52Toys, now that I just got my Ninja Commando from AliBaba. Still waiting on my Baby Commando pre-order at HLJ, so I think I’ll hold out on opening them until I get the whole crew. The three figures I have look great and I haven’t even uncarded them yet, and I’m definitely keeping the cards for the artwork once I open them all. Speaking of complete crews, I managed to get the other three Target-exclusive “Pizza Club” Ninja Turtle figures by NECA. This is the first set of Turtles I gotten since the original Playmates figures from the 80s. I was going to (and still may) get all the Loyal Subjects BST AXN Turtles (I only have Raph for now), but I saw these announced months ago and plotted to get them. The BST AXN Turtles are still good, but I think the NECA Turtles themselves scale better when next to other toylines.

Speaking of toy line crossovers, I also added a new “Scale Wars” section with a few photos of figures from different lines standing next to each other to show how they scale. Some of these may help if you’re thinking of mixing and matching toylines or trying to figure out sizes for cross-line toy fodder.


With X-Men hype at a fever pitch again after the 10-episode run of X-Men ’97, there will be some new mutant-related sprites hitting the site next week!

I’ve spent most of the month working on pixel commissions (more on one of those in a bit) and working on things for two future Sprite Showcase videos. Iron Man will be the next Superhero Sprite Showcase do-over, and I’m redoing nearly everything because the original was done before I had a working version of Anime Studio/Moho again. The original version was done with a few clips in Blender, including a low-poly 3D Hall of Armors, and a bunch of complicated layer compositions in Magix Vegas. I’ve finished enough to show it now, including a new logo sequence and added pixel cover 3-shots, but I think it needs more.


The other Superhero Showcase is a team showcase is something I teased in an earlier video and it’ll share parts of earlier episodes. I’m sure you can probably guess which team that’ll be with no other hints.

There will probably be a BIG ToyBoss section update in May once I’m done with the commissions. I’ve managed to get Captain Commando and Mummy Commando of the 52TOYS line of Captain Commando figures, thanks to HobbyLink Japan, and I’ve got Baby Commando on pre-order. I also lucked up got a NECA ‘toon-style turtle with the Target-exclusive “Pizza Club” Leonardo. Great figure, and it’s good to have one of the 4 TMNT in NECA style after getting Usagi Yojimbo and comic-style Slash. Will I be able to get the other three turtles? Tune in and find out. I took a quick size comparison pic to show Leo’s height compared to a Jada Toys Street Fighters, Hasbro’s Marvel Legends, and a BST AXN Turtle by Loyal Subjects.

Captain and Mummy Commando - carded


One of the commissions I drew recently was for a wild video guide by Avlyrr on hoe to play Hulk in Capcom’s Marvel Super Heroes fighting game. This is easily some of the most fun I’ve had watching a fighting game guide, and you’ll get some good laughs from this while learning what the good doctor (remember: this was the Peter David-written Smart Hulk era) can do in that game.


Big thanks to Avlyrr for being so great to work with for that commission!


Arcade Quartermaster just put up the new arcade game shrines for May: Master’s Fury by Unico and Air Bike Cop by Sega! (sorry that was the earlier update. May’s games are Bally Midway’s smash-hit driving combat game Spy Hunter and the gory Kaneko/Taito side-scrolling slasher Kabuki-Z!


Time for me to get back to work on the current commission. I’ll be back in May!

I’ve mostly been chipping away at getting this site ready for the server upgrade, but I couldn’t let August 9th go by without a little Revenge of 1989 recognition to honor a year that brought a lot of the games (and other things) that led to the creation of this site. That’s a literal statement, because the first version of this site were Sega Smash Pack shots of Golden Axe, Revenge of Shinobi, and Altered Beast for the Sega Genesis, all games that hit the U.S. in 1989. So here’s the newness:

Custom Sprites:
Final Fight: Andore (Final Fight wait pose)
Gang Wars: new gallery, starting with the heroes Mike and Jackie.
Shinobi: all-new Kasumi (the Revenge of Shinobi)
TMNT: NES 1989 game stance (with and without weapons) for Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo.

All new custom sprites were also added to the the main GFX Generators, where you can assemble your own fake screenshots and group pics.

The Revenge of 1989: A new timeline page was added, various adjustments were made to the articles, including the confirmation (thanks to an interview with Time Extension magazine) that Konami’s Crime Fighters was indeed their template for later games like Ninja Turtles and the Simpsons.


As I mentioned at the start of this post, I’m working on an all-around behind-the-scenes update of this site, using a hard drive copy of it that simulates the server update. I’ve got a lot of the site working and even the image generators are over 70% working before I stopped to do this update. This is some heavy work, and it’s costing me extra site host fees to run on the older server, so I won’t be doing much other than that until it’s done, trying to finish it (and fixes to my other sites) before the site hosting charge hits my wallet again in September. I started a separate post about that in this link to keep track of where I am in the upgrade project.

Despite that, there will be an update to the ToyBoss section this month because I’ve got that main page working with new code that works on its own and I’ve got some roster pics to update (especially since I got that new camera).

Just a small update to recognize the year that pretty much led to the creation of this site, revolutionized the beat ’em up, and just generally kicked all kinds of behind: 1989.

Custom Sprites:
Ninja Gaiden: Ryu Hayabusa – redone NES fight stance, in-game NES sprite and cover art outfit variants
TMNT: April O’Neil – redone calm standing pose + fixes to Shredder’s Revenge fight stance

GFX Generators:
Main Generator: The “1989 arcade” background has been remodeled with new walls, a change to the neon, new carpet and improved arcade machine sprites.


The carpet pattern is self-explanatory, but the neon’s blue represents the U.S. debut of the Sega Genesis (Mega-Drive) and the orange represents the Turbografx-16 (PC-Engine). This background was added to the Group, End – MvsC, Vs 3v3 scene, Comics 88×136, Boxes, Flyer & Posters 160×192 Screen type options.


I’m taking a “break” from the site for a few different reasons, including trying to finally finish that Guy vs. Mad Gear fight video that I started years ago. Really, I’ve been working on it on the side for a long time, including more animations for the Mad Gear members, respriting the sunglasses-wearing woman based on the Final Fight bezel art, and remaking a location I made up for a MUGEN stage long ago. You can see a bit of that in the HalfTime video I posted back in June, and it’s in there because I’m aiming to finally get that fight done.

To tell the truth, I really need a bit of rest, and I never really do whenever I take a break from the site, but maybe I’ll try it for real this time. But I’ve got a lot of big things I want to do for this site, and it’d probably help to recharge before I try some of these possibly insane ideas.

There will still be some site updates and fixes, there just won’t be a lot of new pixel art from me added for a while until further notice, except for late October (because the HorrorThon must go on).

A new sprite of April O’Neil in her Shredder’s Revenge fight stance has been added to the TMNT Custom Sprites gallery and the the main Image Generator

Of course this is in honor of the long-awaited release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, bringing the Green Machine (and friends) back to the pixelart-based beat ’em up format for some arcady good times. Just got it as a gift from a friend before I could even buy it myself (thanks, Z!) and I’ll be digging into it this weekend!


There’s a new killer-looking 2.5D platformer on the horizon, and the name of the game is Slave Zero X. Yes, it’s connected to the Dreamcast game, and here’s the first taste of the action:
Slave Zero X – Announcement Trailer
Look at that crisp, beautiful pixel art and animation. No surprise that I wishlisted this as fast as I could. Here’s the Steam page for it if you’re in the mood to do the same:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1903910/Slave_Zero_X/


Reminder: the Ninja Baseball Spirits comic book Kickstarter campaign, officially based on the Ninja Baseball Bat Man beat ’em up, is still going on with 16 days to go! Both physical and digital versions of the comic (as well as the BPM comic) are available in the campaign, so please check it out and pledge if you dig it and can afford to do so!


I’m still working on the Yo Joe June update, stay tuned!