This image was created with a purpose in mind. But until I can finish the project in question (no eta atm), I'll just present it as is.

So I've been on a bit of an old school 8-bit video game craze lately. It could be due to my watching the Angry Video Game Nerd for the first time or any number of television shows like Community featuring 8-bit episodes. Even after finishing this piece, this fire is stoked further by the newly released trailer for Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, which is being described as this generation's Who Framed Roger Rabbit in terms of cameos.

So from this fresh obsession came the need to create, hence this ~20 character video game themed crossover group image I call Melee, named after the Gamecube version of Smash Bros and with simple old-school one-named games in mind. All these characters are my own with an amalgam or mashed-up influence with some video game character or design for the purposes of this image. Half of the characters I've drawn before in previous creative spurts, others designed specifically for this piece:

In semi-left-to-right order:

"Firecracker" (Solana in the style of Angry Birds)

Enyd (as a mask inspired from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask)

Cosmos (as a mask inspired from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask)

Chirisu (as a mask inspired from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask)

Pink Deedee (as Keyblade Warrior from Kingdom Hearts)

ARM-R (as a Summon Charm from Kingdom Hearts)

Lenny Elkhound (as Keyblade Warrior from Kingdom Hearts)

"Roli" (ROlive as a cousin from the Katamari series)

Dejah (as a chef from Burger Time)

ARM-R Kirby (Kirby, from the series of the same name, as though he has gain the abilities of my ARM-R character)

Akoma (in the style of a character from the Sonic the Hedgehog series)

Slither (a virus character based off of various video game elements)

Angelic (Angel reimagined as a Pokemon)

"Chum" (Kreb as a Heartless from Kingdom Hearts)

Mina (as a Heartless from Kingdom Hearts)

"Fluffer" (Eve as a Heartless from Kingdom Hearts)

Xegna (NegaDeeDee as an Organization XIII member from Kingdom Hearts)

Fork (a virus character based off of various video game elements)

Mask (an Emotle mashed-up with the Mask villain from Super Mario Bros 2)

Porn0 (a virus character based off of various video game elements)

Also the following props:

Fireball (Mario series)

Pokeball (Pokemon)

"T" block (Tetris)

Blue/Yellow Pill (Dr Mario)

I think I had the most fun with the Fluffer design. I really wanted a Heartless version of my sheep character Eve, but struggled to best design one without it looking like a generic sheep.

I knew that drawing all these characters together in my usual cartoon-based style would make it a little hard to read. So after pain-stakingly knocking-out all the line-work, I applied what I'm calling Atmosphere effects to add depth to the over-all image. This was done with the aid of the background colors being partially applied to each character individually as some percentage. I hoped in doing so the piece looks older and a bit faded like the era I was trying to capture. On top of rendering using my typically airbrushing, this image took about 3 days just to color.

There are a few things that do bug me about the piece. In the initial thumbnail stage, I had quite a few more characters I wanted to add in ("Queen Hippo" Wawa, "Animal Crossing" Aya, "Star Fox" Cyan, etc). But I misjudged how much room I had to work with once I was in the penciling stage and wound up enlarging a few characters to compensate. Speaking of which, I didn't realize until after inking that Mina was drawn too big, making the characters near her knee appear smaller than what they should. And finally, I only discovered yesterday that I forgot the ear elements to the Fluffer design (you know, the one that I spent so much time to design). Oh well, I think it's a nice piece over all. And finally, the abundance of Kingdom Hearts references. I did like the game and it does have plenty of elements to work from, but I would have liked more variety. Problem was, I fell in love with the Heartless Kreb and Eve concepts to let them go. Plus I needed Lenny to help counterbalance the number of women in the image.

Aside from creating this group image, I wished to further work on this creative wave by repurposing an NES controller into a thumbdrive. I made it so you can still of the satisfaction of pressing the buttons (though they don't do anything). I nicknamed it "PLAYER ONE." Now for those of you who may be upset that I took a good NES controller out of circulation, the one I bought needed repair as it is. I would much rather repurpose a non-functioning product (as long as it looks good).

I was hoping to do another repurposing project, but I lack the funds for it for the time being. Until then, I have a nice little wallpaper for my PS3 and an NES controller I can hook up to it to play videos off of. :D

"Silly, you can't hook up an NES controller to a PS3"

JUST WATCH ME!!! XP