After drawing the casts of Legends and M, I felt that some of my favourite characters were missing, so I put them together in their own picture. You won’t see them all in the same game, but these are the powerful movers and shakers of Rayman’s world: fairies, magicians, and gods. I went with the later designs, mostly because they look better, although Polokus/Bubble Dreamer came out pretty wonky. Also Origins’s Magician (Ales Mansay) is a different guy to the original Magician (Andrew/Pierre).
Erk, all these characters were really hard to draw. I can’t say that I’m super happy with any of them, besides Rayman. Oh well, I still like them as an ensemble, and as part of Rayman’s extended friend-o-sphere. See my write-up of the animated series here.
I had fun with this game. Well, the race sections anyway. It was interesting how they expanded the roster solely based on Rayman 2 stuff. So here’s the cast of Arena plus Globette from Rush, minus Dark Rayman because he’s just a skin. Besides, this way there’s an even match of goodies and baddies, although I don’t know if Dark Globox would side with the pirates just because he’s bad. I like to imagine that when it comes right down to it, even nightmares would reject the incursion of pirate outsiders.
You know, they never explain why Suzy is purple when she’s supposed to be the daughter of the Doc, a normal human (well apart from the pervasive limblessness, but everyone has that). Maybe she was exposed to some of the Doc’s weird science, or she could be an adopted alien. Or even half alien on her mother’s side. You decide!
Another RPG classic, fun to draw because of a wide cast of different-looking people. Although again I had the Final Fantasy problem of the characters being vastly different between different official artworks and sprites. Not as bad here as in other games; it seems the iOS sprites are based on SNES chibi artwork, and Pictlogica follows from that. I just ignore the Amano artwork and use either the SNES sprites since that’s what players know the characters as from the games, or the chibi art/revised sprites if I think it looks better. Anyway love these characters! Thanks Square!
On DK Vine, a common query recently has been “Which Brothers Bear is Best?”. These helper characters from off of Donkey Kong Country 3 have all been getting so much love that I was inspired to draw them myself. It also helps to see them all at a glance, in order to determine which one is best. So I put it to you now: which is best?
Let’s go back there. A time before the endless cycle of hype, angst, crushed dreams, recriminations, and conflict. A simpler time when the sheer novelty of the Smash concept filled us with a sense of childlike wonder. A time when the roster could easily be drawn by me on a reasonably-sized canvas. Now I’ve drawn most of these Nintendo All-Stars before, but I’ve made some adjustments to them here to better fit in or match their SSB artwork. But I don’t even know what’s going on with Jigglypuff, she’s just too round for this art style.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, low-detail pixel style!
Nausicaä is the most adapted piece of Hayao Miyazaki’s work. His original epic manga was partially adapted into the proto-Ghibli film (while it was still ongoing, hence the film covers only the first part of the manga’s story). It’s also the only of his works (aside from Lupin III) or any Ghibli works to have video games based on it—the story goes that Miyazaki was so appalled at the poor quality of the games that he forbade any further adaptations of his films. The fact that these video games exist and I can link this fascinating article on them justifies this post on my video game blog, yessir.
So this pixel art portrays most of the main characters of the manga; if you’ve only seen the film you’ll recognise about half of them. The manga has a rich, expanded world and storyline—on the other hand, the only colour is in the covers, so I had to make up a palette for some of these.
The many faces of K. Rool, low-detail pixel style!
K. Rool is such a memorable villain, and part of the reason is his reinvention of himself in various games. New costumes make him stand out in a new appearance and open up new possibilities for a battle. Namco even made a new outfit for him for a bit part in a baseball game, so good on them! That particular design is based on Paon’s reworking so smaller crown, no tail, and no belly armour. The others are all Rare.
It may have a dodgy localised title, and I may be absolutely no good at playing it, but this game is a cool oddity for Yoshi’s Island fans. It’s a spinoff set firmly in that world (as opposed to drawing from Mario World or Yoshi’s Story), so that means lots of characters I have strong nostalgia for, including Poochy! This drawing depicts the characters from Stage Clear mode, which each have unique backgrounds and effects, as well as a partner on the right side.
Green Yoshi, Yellow Baby Yoshi, Lakitu, Hefty Goonie, Poochy, Grinder, Prince Froggy, Clawdaddy, Gargantua Blargg, Flamer Guy, Raphael the Raven, Red Shy Guy
Ico & Shadow of the Colossus, low-detail pixel style!
These are beautiful, atmospheric games, but the colour palette can be a little drab, especially on Wander, which makes it hard to colour him. I did my best. I think one of the strengths of these games is the central partnerships. The secondary characters and their relationship with the protagonists are very important to the experience. Sometimes you’re separated from your companion but that makes the gameplay together even more meaningful, maybe.
I’ve just finished a re-play of the DKC and DKL trilogies. They’re so sublime, and with this sense of family togetherness as the Kongs support each other on their adventures. So I wanted to draw all the Kongs from these classic games together. Candy and Wrinkly draw from their DK64 designs: not strictly DKC but it made them stand out more. Swanky was easier to draw with his upright DKC3 posture. In Funky’s case his DKC3 design has persisted since, so it’s the best look for him.
Here’s the unsung villains of the Pokemon games. Sure they all have the same Rattatas and Purrloins, but they have their own motives and lives. I’ve gone with original designs over remake designs, and happily there’s female variants for all of them, so that’s what I went with too.
Team Rocket Grunt, Team Magma Grunt, Team Aqua Grunt, Team Galactic Grunt, Team Plasma Grunt, Team Flare Grunt
One of the more obscure games of the modern Rare, this was a retooling of a potential Donkey Kong puzzle game that after the buyout was re-themed around Rare’s website mascot Mr Pants. This is his family, including sentient lightbulb Helpo. Yes, it’s hard to do stick figures in this style.
Mr Pants, Mrs Pie, Toby, Socks the Dog, Vest the Cat, Helpo
These low-detail pixels are just some random characters from the Pokemon franchise. Characters I’ve connected with over the years.
Todd from Pokemon Snap. Mewtwo from the first movie (he had a cool brown cape when he showed up again in that one TV special). Yellow from the Pokemon Special/Pokemon Adventures manga. And Lyra from HeartGold/SoulSilver. Hats are hard.
