Fan Art
Mortal Kombat
I still remember the first time I played Mortal Kombat. I was at a pizza shop with my dad in New Hampshire waiting to pick up our order when I caught a glimpse of that glorious arcade cabinet resting in the back corner by the bathroom. I didn't know much about it other than that it was a fighting game like Street Fighter 2, and I was kind of familiar with the genre. Naturally, I picked the blue ninja (what kid wouldn't?) and the only thing I remember after that is getting my butt kicked by a woman in green spandex right before being uppercut into a pit full of spikes.
My adolescent mind was finally opened to the joys of mature gaming.
Since that fateful night at the pizza shop, I've been addicted to the franchise, but enough gushing over the game. I prefer to flatter it with art! ... So I did. 5 times. More to come!
Street Fighter
While I've always been more of a Mortal Kombat fan, I fully acknowledge that Street Fighter 2 is the superior game... All 800 versions of it. Why not draw it? Though I'm not really sure what compelled me to also illustrate the first game in the series, I feel like maybe that was a poor decision on my part. I mean, who can forget such classics as Joe, Mike, and... Eagle?
Okay, I really just wanted an excuse to draw Ryu with red hair.
Primal Rage
There's not much to say about this game. As a kid, if you loved both Mortal Kombat and Dinosaurs, this game was pulled directly out of your wildest childhood fantasies and manifested as an awe-inspiring 90s arcade cabinet. My best friend and I would waste all of our parents' money playing this game at the arcades. Money well spent, I say.
It wasn't quite as violent as Mortal Kombat, but what it lacked in overall gore, it made up for with one specific character: Chaos. He had two projectiles of note: puking and farting. To top it off, his fatality was called the golden shower. Use your imagination. I mean, there's a ton more to the game than that, but where do you really go from there?
If you can get your hands on a copy, I suggest playing it.
Pro Wrestling
This game doesn't get nearly as much praise as it deserves. Pro Wreslting is one of those titles from the NES days that always sticks out the most when I think about classic gaming. The music wasn't necessarily great, but I've never forgotten it. Outside of maybe Starman, the characters aren't anything to write home about, but I can remember each one and all their moves. It's simple, it's fun, it's fairly easy, and it somehow managed to capture everything I loved about wrestling during that time. The wrestlers were silly, the moves were gimmicky, and even the mannerisms of the characters (in all their 8-bit glory) matched the goofiness of wrestlers in that era. The game just worked, so I drew it.
Super Mario Bros 2
This drawing came out of a random doodle one night where I drew Mario about to bludgen a Shy Guy to death with a POW block. For some reason, the idea of Mario and his pals reaking havoc in the magical dream world of Subcon tickled me, and I had to go with it. Side note: Subcon is wildly underused in the Mario games; how many times do we need to see Mario rescue the princess from Bowser in the Mushroom Kingdom? Branch out, already, Nintendo.
Super Mario Inception: Wart's Revenge. Get on it, Miyamoto!
Indie Collage
Over the last few years I've gotten to know a number of indie creators. Some have become inspirations, others great collaberators, and a handful have become very good friends of mine.
These people were the reason I finally decided to start working on the Star Fetched comic in 2018, and I had planned on getting more involved with the community at the time, but the opportunity to work on the game took precedent, so I held off. Once the game was finished, however, I dipped my toe in the waters with some fan art of two projects that I was most impressed by: Gunship Thunderpunch by Brian Shearer and Cyberfrog by Ethan Van Sciver. Then it just sort of... flew off the rails.
X-Men
My love of synthwave was filling my brain with images of shiny, neon album covers, and I think it began to rub off on me a little at a time when I was getting the itch to do some X-Men fan art. This wasn't a specific roster at any time, but I just picked the characters I enjoyed the most and went with it. Then I drew a matching rogues gallery.
Marvel
From February to November of 2016, I obsessively began illustrating a number of Marvel characters. In total, about 341.
Originally I was just going to illustrate the X-Men roster from the 60s through the 90s, then it became the Avengers from the 60s to the early 2000's... Then I just had to draw as many characters from the Marvel universe as I could.
However, I couldn't just leave it there. I had drawn all of these characters, but what for? So I illustrated six 11 x 17 backgrounds and filled them to the brim with all 300+ characters, creating a mega collage of my Marvel fan art. Below is the final product; I hope you enjoy!
Spawn
Spawn was probably the last memorable superhero to come out of comic books in the last 20 years. If there's a more popular modern character, it's lost on me. Sure, there are other great characters like Savage Dragon, Witchblade, or The Max, but none have the notoriety of Spawn.
I think a true sign of a good superhero is their rogues gallery. Spiderman and Batman have some of the most memorable villains in comic history, and I think Spawn deserves a seat at the table with characters like The Violator and Overtkill (though I've always been a fan of Cy-Gor).
Anyway, it's a good-looking franchise, and I like to draw good-looking things.
Child of the 80's
I grew up in the 80's, and I'm convinced it was the greatest decade to experience childhood in. It stands as one of the most creative eras that pop culture has ever gone through. This was a time when people were just throwing every idea at the wall and seeing what stuck, and if I'm being honest, a lot of crap stuck, but so much more of it was gold. Heck, even the crappy stuff can hit you in the 'nostalgias' (I'm talking about you, Kid n' Play animated series!).
There are the obvious franchises that we all know and love: Transformers, Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, etc., but there were so many more that have sadly faded into obscurity that were equally as great, like Bionic Six, Food Fighters, and Visionaries. My personal favorite was the Silverhawks. Everything back then had a gimmick, which made the toys awesome and unique, and everything had a jingle, so it stayed in your head for years. The colors were bright, the characters were over the top, and gosh darn it, I miss the days when bad guys were bad and good guys were good. No plot twists, no anti-heroes, no politics—just good, clean, non-PC fun.
All that being said, I just had to draw it. All of it. For a standard 11x17 print, I could only fit so many franchises in, and really, I just stuck to the ones that I liked the most growing up, but there's enough content out there to make a hundred of these kinds of prints... Okay, no, I'm probably not making any more; carpal tunnel is a real thing, and I'd like to avoid it.
For the background, my goal was to capture the essence of my grade school trapper-keepers. Man, I miss neon.
Visionaries
Before I finished the above illustration, I had been planning on doing a print for each individual franchise; I got as far as "Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light" before realizing just how much work I was making for myself. So I finished that print and then just went ahead and did the mashup with a few handpicked favorites. If you knew the toys, I hope you enjoy this. If you didn't know the toys, I shed a tear for you. Kids these days don't know the joys of holograms.
Flight of the Navigator
There's not much to say here—Flight of the Navigator is one of my all-time favorite movies. I used to drive my family crazy when I was little by watching the VHS recording of it about three times a day (not an exaggeration). I've watched it recently, and I think it still holds up, but I'm blinded by nostalgia.
Rock Lords
Okay, so maybe this technically belongs under the Commission section of this site because I was, in fact, commissioned to draw it... But come on, it fits so well under the 80's section! Rock Lords, baby!
Yeah, I love the Star Wars too. I wasn't feeling inspired enough to go full-blown print of all the characters like I've done in the past, but I was feeling inspired enough to throw together a copyright-free Star Wars knock-off Garage Band track and slap my fan art over it for YouTube clout. Enjoy!
When I was little, my dad used to take me to the video store (remember those?) every week, and we'd rent Godzilla movies. He had tried countless times to get me to watch the "classics" that he grew up with, and the majority of the time they just couldn't keep my tiny mind occupied; Godzilla was really the only thing that would stick. Even though I knew it was a guy in a rubber suit and it was completely outrageous, something about those films struck a cord with my imagination. The costume designs, the miniature set pieces, the anticipation of finding out if Godzilla would be a good guy or a bad guy—it was absolutely captivating.
Most importantly, it was a bonding experience for me and my dad, so Godzilla, despite the cheese, holds a very special place in my heart. So, I decided to buckle down and pay homage to this great franchise by illustrating a whole mess of Godzilla's opponents. Hope you enjoy!
