All last week I was knee-deep in my history textbooks and clippings to get a large history project ready for one of my jobs. This year is Canada’s 150th birthday and it’s my home town’s 160th birthday. All the dates fall around a few days shy of each other so we’re planning a bunch of stuff for the occasion. I’ve had a good past with my local Historical Society and I used to sit on their board a few years back. Preserving history and educating people about this sort of thing is a passion of mine and in 2012 I wrote an interactive eBook that was featured in a huge exhibit for national Culture Day week.
I am happy I am done this huge project as it took so much time away from all my regular work and from updating my blog. I am thankful I did manage to get a lot of my other projects finished and off my plate before this week started as I don’t think I would have been able to manage if I didn’t.
DANK ZINE
I had more copies printed of the first issue of the Dank Zine as a bunch of people started asking me after I placed the order if they could get issues. If you’d like a back issue you can email me. I’m trying to set up a shop area to my blog so I can start selling the Zine quicker and easier to those who are not part of the Patreon. Speaking of new issues….
The second issue is already printed and I’m starting to get each order packaged and shipped to all my backers! I’m now up to 32 colour pages and sticking with the better printing as everyone loved the quality of the first issue. This issue features player interviews with LordBBH, artist and WWF Super fan Anthony Brennan from Qooplo paper toys and all the best Dank Art from the month of April. If you like my work and want to keep me making Dank Art, please back my Patreon!
DANK ART
LordBBH had a decent Monday Roulette stream featuring the random choices made thru the random game picker. A lot more classic games came up this time which is a good thing for me cause I love them. The really dank Noah’s Arc game came up where you had to fetch two of every animal and bring it back onto the arc. I was unaware that there were Bible themed arcade games out there but hey, you hang around long enough during a BBH stream you’re going to learn something about arcade games. My other favourite dank art from BBH’s streams was the Pinball one I made on Thursday for the BBH raffle. At first I was shocked that someone actually requested this game, but soon after drawing the dank art for it I found myself playing pinball on my computer. What can I say? I like pinball :3
Chuboh was playing some classic Amiga games this week which is always a rare treat as I don’t see many people streaming Amiga stuff. I just started following Chuboh recently as I saw he not only was into arcade games, but DOS and Amiga games as well. When I first started this blog I wanted not only to have a home for all the Dank Art that I make for people’s streams but also to highlight those people who I do art for and have a list of some of the best retro players out streaming today. It can get a bit hard if you’re looking for games and players and don’t know where to start, so in part of making a bunch of Dank Art I’m helping to connect people to players to get them some exposure as well. Speaking about dank old games…
Macaw45 was playing German DOS games and I don’t think anyone is streaming that stuff (unless there is a German guy who’s totally streaming dank DOS stuff from his basement but I have yet to find him). I made a lot of the Doman Dank Art from the chat’s suggestions as I was having a great morning & took suggestions from those participating in chat. I also love drawing ridiculously huge warriors that look awkward and hilarious with their added muscle bulk.
Have you seen Bouphe yet? Bouphe is AWESOME. She’s from the UK and plays old DOS and Amiga games, usually more on the sexier side of things. It’s always great to see girls streaming on twitch but even better when they are playing old dank retro games that no one else is. Bouphe is mega cute and very charming and I caught her last week playing this ridiculous Elvira game for the Amiga. Check her out if you’re not following her already!
In the Studio
I wanted to try out new techniques in the studio this weekend, so I got out my desk easel and experimented with tilting my canvas. It’s necessary to move your space around when you work with it and with watercolour using gravity to help pull the pigment into the water and across the paper. Though I draw every day and I have been painting and selling my work for a while I always try to revisit training techniques as often as I can. Even though I know all this stuff from years of trial and error revisiting lessons and challenging myself to show improvement is the smart way to get better. I would say on any given day I am putting at minimum 3 hours of drawing time in but once a week I will challenge myself and just do “study work” so that I can make mistakes and learn from them.
Something cool arrived in the mail. This is a Zine by Simon Hanselmann who is well known for his Megg Mog & Owl comics. I follow him on Twitter and he’s one of my favourite cartoonists right now. He’s also really into self printing Zines and I try to collect each one that he comes out with. Each zine is from a limited run and in the case of this one it’s been embellished by Simon himself so I have something unique. I always try to support those who inspire me, so if you haven’t seen his work I recommend you check it out.
GTA Game Expo
my buddy Greg & I took a drive over to Mississauga to check out the GTA Game Expo which was a retro game collectors sell/swap meet I talked about earlier in the year. This was a crazy fun event and I always love going to shows like these as it’s a fun way to find games. Often the titles and things I am looking for that I can’t find or see anywhere else pop up at shows like these, but my biggest problem going now is that it takes me longer to find what I want to buy as I own almost everything :p
I am always looking for imports and cheaper PC Engine stuff and I was happy to say I got in connection with someone local who has a LOT of PC Engine stuff for sale. He was quite impressed that I went for War of the Dead- he tried to sell it to me as “Top down Zelda adventures style game” but I said “omg honey no- thats the worst way to describe this game- it’s an action adventure RPG where you fight as a sexy girl with a shotgun on an island where zombie guts monsters are eating everyone and you save at the church.”
Sure, the prices are not what they used to be, but if you do your leg work and know your stuff then these events are more of a fun thing to do in the afternoon. We sure had fun and I can’t wait for the next show to go to.