Side-by-side comparison: my 16 colour pixel rendition and Atari’s actual artwork for their Stargate game for the VCS (2600)

Click for larger view.

I still remember the 70s and 80s with wide-eyed, take-a-step-back wonder: high-tops, Sony Walkmans, feathered hair, home computers and The Boss. And the movies: arguably not a golden age of cinema, the 80s were the birthplace of many of my all-time favourite flicks.

Here are two 8bit pixel posters of two (ok, one of them is from the late 70s) – enjoy!

E.T. the 8bit Terrestrial

Han Shoots First

I’m also thinking of publishing these as full-sized posters. Should I?

The Monsters of Rogue by Carl Jagt

After dreaming about this for months, this taxonomic reference to one of my most favoured games, Rogue, is now complete! Fans get their own copy here.

The Monster List

• Aquator
• Bat
• Centaur
• Dragon
• Emu
• Flytrap
• Griffon
• Hobgoblin
• Ice Monster
• Jabberwock
• Kestrel
• Leprechaun
• Medusa
• Nymph
• Orc
• Phantom
• Rattlesnake
• Snake
• Troll
• Ur-ville
• Vampire
• Wraith
• Xeroc
• Yeti
• Zombie

The (American VS Russian) Space Race has always fascinated me, even taking pride in having been alive (although festooned in diapers) for the July 1969 moon landing. The Mercury and Gemini programs that preceded my (newborn) existence are especially interesting in both technological and cultural ways.

Anyways, having read John Glenn’s biography I felt compelled to make this little drawing. The artwork was drawn using EDGE Touch on the iPod Touch and composited using Seashore on the Mac. The drop shadows were added to pop the pixel drawings from each other.

Godspeed, John Glenn.

Drawn with EDGE Touch for the iPod Touch/iPhone (using an iPod Touch 1st gen), emailed as PNG to my personal account and then scaled and composited using Seashore on my Mac.

While I am using an as-authentic-as-possible Commodore 64 colour palette, I have not gone as far as using the correct pixel aspect ratio. In other words, these are square pixels, baby.

Get in on the fight – get your tee here.

For the curious: drawing using TinyPixels on the iPod Touch (1st gen). Available at the App Store for $1.99, TinyPixels lets you choose a canvas size anywhere from 16×16 to 300×300. A 3200% zoom helps me out as I’m currently exploring the 16×16 format. Lack of palettes bothers me, forcing me to recolour in Seashore.

Lots of kid memories of coding sprites on the Commodore 64: I even had my dad photocopy a custom sprite sheet I built to help make adding in binary faster.

UPDATE: I’m looking into the C64 Paint XL app — it features the actual Commodore 64 palette, even supports double-bit sprite colouring – all for $2.99. Maybe when my allowance arrives.