Not much to show here this week except for the update to the M-Wave pic. I did a bit of line cleaning but the main thing is that I redrew the energy trails since the earlier version just looked too plain. It finally has it’s own page, too.

I’ve finally made a long overdue upgrade to the gallery system. There are now separate gallery pages instead of dumping the whole picture list onto one giant page. There are a few bugs that still need to be worked out, like when you’re looking at pictures by tag or character, but the pages still do what they’re supposed to do. Expect more site tweaks like this because the site really needs them.

I apologize again for the low content amount lately but the big ScrollBoss anniversary is less than a month away and I have a lot of work to do there. There was another update to the Vs. Maker graphic generator with characters getting more sprites and alternate palettes (or color schemes). I’ll be taking a break from that because I have a lot of pixel art to do for the big anniversary on July 19th.

Categories: Illmosis updates, Site News by James Beaver

Some people have parties, others just get drunk and many have a mixture of the two. Me? I celebrated my birthday (on the 12th) by drawing this:

It’s a semi-remake of a picture I drew on my birthday a few years back. The full-size version of that pic was accidentally overwritten by a resized version of it so the original color version is lost forever. It looks like I’ll finally have it replaced.

Categories: Illmosis updates by James Beaver
Tags: main universe

Thanks to a lot of unexpected things popping up (including a some scripting errors on ScrollBoss), I don’t have anything new finished for this week. I dropped the “weekly guarantee” thing quite a while ago but still tried to have something new anyway. The thing that I linked to up there is a preview for something that will happen later this year. It’s a preview pic that I did a while ago but I changed the teaser word back to the way I originally planned it. What is it? It’s one of those projects I’ve been planning for years and I’ve sprinkled clues to it in different places at different times. I finally have the perfect intro so I’m pulling the trigger on it later this year. That pic will get a gallery page in the next update along with a clue that I posted elsewhere. The new project will explain what seemed like a throwaway post somewhere a few years back. It’s all going to come together this year and it will be fully ridiculous. More character teasers will be added over the coming weeks with the final two letting you know what’s up.

The biggest problem is that I’m working on a lot of things that I can’t show yet for ScrollBoss and something else that will be revealed later this year. I plan to have at least one more old feature return to ScrollBoss’ Minus World section on the 10th Anniversary (July 19th) though I’m working on art for more than one. Here’s a preview from the most likely to return:

The few people who remember the goofy Minus World articles from 2001 to 2002 (not to be confused with the different sites named that) may remember what that article was and the rest of you may be able to figure it out just from that clip. I’ll have to save the finished product for July 19th. I’m also trying to put some finishing touches for the 1st new version of the Vs. Mode battle engine since 2002 that will make it less of a pain-in-the-butt to run poll-based battles along with making them more than a popularity contest. The basics have been done for a while but I’m finishing things that will hopefully make it harder to cheat and add more incentive to voters. I’ll be back to work on that right after I add the update post to this site right now. Sorry for the disappointment but I’ll try to have something fun next weekend since it’s my birthday.

Categories: Illmosis updates by James Beaver
Tags: scrollboss, the war begins again

Here’s the second drawing of Sue that I mentioned before. The linework has been smoothed by Inkscape and it’s now in full color. The earlier version is still linked to on the gallery page so you can compare them and see why I immediately decided to try it again.

I also updated the Vs. Maker on ScrollBoss a few days ago with a lot of new sprites and sprite palettes. Work on the next update has already started.

That’s all for this week. There may not be much new stuff next week unless I get my malfunctioning mouse replaced.

Categories: Illmosis updates by James Beaver
Tags: Namco, Pac-Man

(May 21st)

It’s just in base color and some lines still need cleaning but here’s a lil’ something just for the event. I’ll have more this weekend!

(May 22nd)

Today is the 30th Anniversary of Pac-Man’s debut so I drew a picture to celebrate. Believe it or not, the recent Ms. Pac and Sue pictures are complete coincidence because I didn’t know about the event until Friday afternoon. Go play some Google Pac-Man while it’s still up!

Categories: Illmosis updates by James Beaver
Tags: Namco, Pac-Man

… and that’s just what they’ll do. Not that she chomps with her feet or anything but they aid her in the chomping, you see. Never mind. Yes, the Ms. Pac pic is now in full color. I traced the first pic I did while changing a few things then vector traced it using Inkscape and it’s Import Bitmap feature along with a boatload of adjustments. I need to get the hang of that for when I really do need to make a vector version of my artwork. I redrew Sue to look more like the version from the cartoon but you’ll see that next week.

There was another Vs. Maker update on ScrollBoss last Friday. Balrog, Blackheart (and Mephisto), Blanka, Cammy, Juggernaut, Psylocke, Rogue, Spider-Man (with Armored Spider-Man palette) and Storm were given the ability to change their color schemes. You can even throw Rogue’s old Black and Green color palette onto her 90’s outfit, something that may be a bit impossible in the original sprites. I’ll be working on the Dug (Final Fight) set of sprites soon and I’ll try to have that sprite pack finished before the end of the month.

Categories: Illmosis updates by James Beaver
Tags: Namco

Just as the legendary Betty White got to host SNL last night, this Mothers’ Day 2010 update stars Ms. Pac Man, the original and reigning first lady of video games. Her enemy, Sue, followed her in and looks like she’s ready to cause some trouble.

I had a great time at last week’s All AmeriCon convention in Warren, Ohio and I’m already looking forward to next year’s show. A lot of people rolled through considering it was the first year of the show. I got to see some old friends, make some new ones and sell some art. One of those friends, and one of the people who helped the show on the behind-the-scenes tip, is Ally. Thanks to her camera, you can see what my table looked like:

Other heralds of awesome include Chris Kasmar (dA page here), Jay Fife (Not Safe For Work: site here and dA page here) and the crew from Holy Grail Comics. I’d like to thank Greg, Josh and the rest of the All-American Comics crew, Market On The Square for being a wonderful host, everybody that stopped by and checked out the table and extra thanks to those who bought something or did an art trade with me. Shout out to the JOhio reps (especially Edgefind) who made it to the event. It was my first convention table ever but everything went smoothly.

While I’m making this topic ridiculously long, I may as well post a link to the ScrollBoss post about the big Vs. Maker update that was made last week. I worked on bits of it during the week before the convention dove into it but went into overdrive on it last week to the point where I uploaded it a week early.

That’s enough for now. I’ll see you next week with updated Pac-ladies and Vs. Maker funk on ScrollBoss. Happy Mothers’ Day!

Categories: Illmosis updates by James Beaver
Tags: All AmeriCon, Namco, Pac-Man, Vs. Maker

This week’s update includes two updated pictures and a party flyer for a party that you’ve already made it to. The Wonder Woman picture finally gets a background and the Tyris Flare pic gets some necessary tweaks. The party flyer is for the Illmosis Megajam 2010. What is that? You’re looking at it. Just read the text on it’s gallery page and you’ll get the whole story.

This is the last update before the All AmeriCon in Warren, Ohio on Sunday, May 2nd. I’m updating today since I won’t be home on Sunday and I already have enough stuff done for an update. If you can make it to the convention, I’ll be in the artist’s section looking a bit like the crappy drawing of me in the lower corner of the Illmosis Megajam 2010 flyer. Besides having art to sell and printed versions of some things you see on the site, I’m going to bring some work that aren’t on the website yet. This will be the first time I’ll have a table at a convention so stop by and see how I fail at it! Artist Jay Fife is going to be there so you can check out his work after being disappointed by my shoddy table set-up. See? Fun for everybody!

Categories: Illmosis updates by James Beaver
Tags: DC Comics, golden axe, Sega, Wonder Woman

Background Bonanza. My brain just defecated it out as I was trying to figure out what to name the post. What is it? It’s when I make backgrounds for a bunch of pictures including some that I didn’t plan to make backgrounds for. This batch includes the recent Tyris Flare pic, the Green Lantern Hal Jordan (2009), the Vision (2009), Harley Quinn (2008), Cyclops (2005) and Nightcrawler (2004). Most of these backgrounds are just simple and symbolic except for Tyris Flare’s. Cyclops and Nightcrawler mostly have the same bg since I’m going for a theme there. You’ll probably see Vision’s bg used for other Avengers but I may make another one just for him. There will be more updates like this now that I have a computer that can do the work without konking out on me or slowing to a glacial crawl.

I’m still working on stuff for the All-Americon in Warren, Ohio on May 2nd including some things that won’t be on the website until the weekly update after the convention.

Also: I moved the hit counter from the index page to the main menu page since people just keep linking right to the main menu. That gave me the space to start an “Illmosis Network” section on that page with a link to ScrollBoss and… something cryptic.

Categories: Illmosis updates by James Beaver
Tags: Background Bonanza, DC Comics, Marvel Comics

I’ve been getting some nice, positive feedback about the Blacktron pic so I decided to finish and post this a bit earlier than I planned. There will be no Sunday update tomorrow because I’m getting it out of the way early with both this picture and the full color Tyris Flare pic from Friday. Expect some earlier pictures to get backgrounds and a few will get better coloring.

Categories: Illmosis updates by James Beaver